


dopamine and serotonin look good on you

by allusi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Inspired by Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso | Your lie in April, M/M, Pianist!Kenma, Prodigy!Kenma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:48:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25795396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allusi/pseuds/allusi
Summary: “Is it true that you play the piano, Kenma-san?” lev asks, one morning of training; too early for a morning, the summer sun still asleep in clouds, with the sharp sound of shoes sliding on the floor, the incessant sound of the ball hitting against skins.“I used to,” kenma only answers. kenma could have answered I don't play the piano, cause it's been almost ten years now, and he's sure his fingers don't even know how to position themselves anymore. but, yet, for some reason beyond him, kenma does not dare to let this no existed.kenma feels an arm around his shoulder; an arm whose hand swings around his neck. a familiar presence by his side. teasing he is used to hearing. “Kenma is a very good pianist. He won several big contests. If you weren't so ignorant, Lev, you would know that Kenma was a big figure in junior competitions.”kenma lifts his head a little to give kuro a weary look. kuro, he who has his chin proudly raised; eyes that shine with mischief and daring. kenma growls, a little; and kuro smiles harder. seeing some of his white teeth. kenma hits him in the ribs; and ouch, kuro groans. he moans and laughs. both of them. “Please, don’t do that.”or: kuroo wants kenma to play again
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	dopamine and serotonin look good on you

**Author's Note:**

> maybe one day I will have enough imagination, and I will stop rewriting scenes from other anime. 
> 
> ps!! when the title is in bold and italics, it's some memories

♪

**once upon a time, Death came**

there is a time that kenma tries to forget. his fingers stroking the keys of the keyboard, the notes that he let exist, the music floating around his ears; and a smile, shining and old, great and proud, a joy by his side, a pride in wrinkled golden eyes. a life that kenma tries to forget.

kenma no longer strokes his fingers on the keyboard; his skin no longer touches the light, cold wood. kenma tries to forget. kenma has become accustomed to silence since he had seven; the absence of notes, the void of music, the abandonment of sounds. kenma tries to forget. the strings that no longer vibrate. under the tips of his fingers. under his skin. under his touch. with passion in his heart. young and candid. when kenma didn’t know Death existed. all around him; all next to his arm, a tiny and too thin arm. white skin; innocent, enough sprightly for his timid eyes; shy smile. child’s body. moving shape; skin against wood, ears and music, love in the tips of his small fingers. a shape that played. again, and again; even when it creates wrong keys. even when all he could hear was just an odious sound.

now, kenma is almost seventeen and kenma no longer hears false notes which make his eardrums quiver. silence, the only thing kenma can hear.

the absence of notes, the void of music, the abandonment of sounds. his soundless farewell to the piano, all his goodbyes he did not say.

he didn't have time. kenma blinked his short, black childish eyelashes, and Death was by his side. on the leather stool, banging the white keys, the music of anguish in his pointed ears, the wheezing, heart calling out to Nothingness. the heart, that thing that no longer existed. music, that sound that kenma could no longer hear. make. play.

kenma closed the hood of his piano, and he never opened it again. kenma locked that door, and kenma threw that key in the deep thud of his sadness. a key drowned in tears. in pain. in mourning.

made never to be found.

♪

**there are tears on your lips (and I caught them)**

sometimes, kuroo looks for that key for him. cause kuroo is a stubborn person. cause kuroo is 6' 1.5"of hope, black hair and the certainty that things are never lost forever. kuroo has been searching for ten years, with his colossal hands and bony fingers. his round nails. strong and powerful palms. broken skin that strikes, over and over again, until it's red, until blood and scars, until its legs can no longer jump, until its body can no longer to play; his palms strike, his passion bruises the ball. even if it has been ten years, kuroo is still looking –for him. with this craze that goes beyond kenma and his aversion to play.

that's why kuroo likes to brag about kenma's slender hands, fingers flexible enough to pass the ball a little further, much harder; an extensibility that allows kenma to make up its mind at the last moment. to push the ball when the blockers have already jumped, this ball grazed the tips of kenma’s fingers, white skin. naked skin; without bandages around them. even if kenma's mother has long insisted that he wear them for not to injure his hands, too precious for the keys of his piano, kenma didn’t. not once in nine years. cause kenma was no longer playing, so kenma never listened – and there are bare fingers. and a few scratches around his ring finger, redness on his limbs, broken nails; some injuries that volleyball gave him, and some skin particles that kuroo likes to kiss. _gently_ , kenma said. kenma always says it, only so he can say something; chase the embarrassment off his pink cheeks. kenma still whispers it, even though he's not afraid of pain. there is a constant torment in his heart that he has grown used to. and kuroo has always been gentle, because he encountered broken kenma, the first time his child’s eyes met him; so kuroo surely thinks that kenma will break again, if everything is too loud, if everything becomes stuffy, if everything goes beyond him. kenma doesn't have to say anything for kuroo to treat him like treasure. but, _gentle;_ kenma whispers, always; to chase away the frantic beating of his heart; the thousand blinks of his eyelashes.

kuroo likes to remind everyone of kenma's pianist hands. his mocking smile on his lips and a certain pride in his clear eyes. kenma sends him glares because kenma, he doesn't like to remember. kenma does not like to look for. things are lost, and things cannot be found again.

and yet, daishou is on the waxed ground, his arm in the air, looking for the contact of the synthetic ball against his skin; but it is too late; daishou didn't move early enough, and the ball hit the ground before it even hit his skin. daishou looks on, eyes trembling with hatred, brown eyebrows furrowed, as if reflecting when he misread the kenma game; and daishou looks at the expressionless face and blond hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and daishou, he wonders when kenma decided to pass the ball over the net, instead of passing it to that stupid kuroo who has a strange smile on his face. it annoys him, daishou, the way kenma decides at the last moment; the way his too thin fingers, almost too short for a setter, contract with flexibility and agility, as if time was slow enough for kenma to act. to play. and kuroo has a smirk on his too long lips, still wet with the water from his gourd, and he says, his hands going around his mouth so that his words reach him better, louder;

“Don't mind, don't mind,” unbearable, that smug little tune; those mischievous, shining eyes with a mockery that kuroo doesn't even try to contain. "Kenma has pianist’s hand. He is, after all."

there is something indefinable that shines in his eyes. memories under his eyelids. the old sound of the keys kept in the back of his ears. stars in his eyes. the hundreds of videos that kuroo watched as a child of kenma playing; videos he still watches. kenma videos on the competition stage. the trembling child's legs. wet eyes. fine black hair. a kenma that he does not know. a kenma that he didn't have time to see play – with his own eyes as an eight-year-old kid. kenma playing. just – _playing_ , brushing with his too small fingers the black keys and the white keys; and the entire keyboard, with impressive flexibility; with an accuracy that surpasses the striking shyness of his young age. the childish features of his face. the only; the one number of his age. these are memories that kuroo does not let die.

in kenma's heart, however, his memories are being killed with his own pianist hands and with the help of his great sadness. kenma does not understand why kuroo sees him as the one he is no longer. as if kenma was still banging on the pedals. as if his fingers were still caressing the wood. as if kenma was still playing Chopin with this boundless admiration. as if kenma were just playing – _something_ , anything, hearing the metronome needle dancing, the strings shaking, the page end of the score book blowing away in the wind that rocks the blue curtains. why kuroo speaks as if kenma is still going into the room with the dirty piano and dusty sheet music. on the ground. hundreds of leaves all over the place. torn. some were soaked in water. when kenma was seven years old and blinking his eyelids. as if kenma hadn't thrown his dozen golden trophies on the floor until they broke. until they fall apart –until they fall in several distinct pieces. so that kenma could see some rips in front of his eyes filled with tears, with cries, with past and Death and memory. so that kenma can feel, under his fingers which no longer play, this promise that kenma, seven years old, already made to himself; so that kenma can hit these scratches to forget those in his chest. room without light, room with closed curtains. piece with an abandoned, dead piano. music that no longer vibrates in the air. there are no more wrong notes. there is only silence. abandonment. that's what Death leaves. the condemnation that Death gave him.

why kuroo says he is a pianist when kenma is no longer. maybe he never was, because kenma is trying to forget. and kuroo prevents it. with his mocking joy and honest hope. it's unbearable, the way kuroo can take his hand in his, kiss his broken knuckles, and say with his hazel eyes; _play for me._ kuroo doesn't say anything, his mouth doesn't open, when there is this silence that kuroo is trying to break; sly eyes, loving caresses, on a palm and on a cheekbone, _the music room is next door_ , the piano a few steps from kenma's room, a few yards from his fingertips; kuroo doesn't say it, but his gaze does; _play for me, kenma_. and kenma kisses him, strong; abruptly: he rests his lips against his with an unlike bestiality, and kenma nibbles kuroo's lower lip as fiercely as he can, and his tongue moistens his chapped lips. bluntly. a sound of surprise. one thousandth of a second later; a laugh, light and quick, which almost makes his lips quiver. a soft and flighty laugh, whose vibrations tickle his skin. and then; a waltz of tongues. taste buds that caress, that discern, that come together. again. moans escaping the edge of their lips. _kuro._ fleshy hands passing under his oversized sweatshirt. they play with his skin; his nipples, his navel, his hips. pelvis that rub together, and almost sensual sounds; jerky breathing, sighs of pleasure, lustful looks. _please, forget._ the fingers of a pianist which bloom, which touch; a body that presses against, a heart that melts into the other; breathlessness, the sound of fabrics being stripped, clothes sliding off, two skins that are disarmed to become one. _forget._

sometimes, kuroo does.

♪

**bunch of flowers on my doorstep**

“It's a nice coffeehouse,” kuro says. it is perhaps the second time that he and kenma have come here, in his café with French airs and large lighted windows. it's next to middle and high schools, so it has a lot of young people in japanese uniforms. it's noisy without being too much. noisy, because some girls laugh perhaps a little too loudly, their voices rise, shrill, when they speak from their hearts taken; and silent, because the girls sometimes stop, as if they are getting too sad to talk about it; to say this love that only exists for them. so they are silent, sometimes; they smile to look pretty, _prettier_ , to chase away their sadness too obvious to be able to deceive. they eat their muffins, with their painted nails, and drink their chocolate while blowing over the liquid. it's noisy and silent at the same time, with the piano at the back of the store. two little girls in flowered skirts try to play _claire de lune_. they type with the tips of their too small fingers; slowly, gently, because they don't really know what to do. six-years-old, maybe.

 _perfect place for kenma_ , kuroo thinks. even though his golden gaze shone with a certain melancholy that kuroo had never seen in his eyes, when kenma noticed the upright white piano, and the notes reached his pierced ears. kuroo put his hand on his elbow; reassuring, gentle, and he has whispered some _we can go–_ before kenma shakes his head, his blonde hair waving in the warm March breeze; _it's okay_ , kenma smiled. it wasn't a real smile, since kuroo knows the hundreds of expressions on kenma’s face. kuroo has memorized them. so, kuroo knows that kenma is trying to smile in the name of false tranquility; a deceptive appeasement. because kenma wanted to forget, but kenma didn’t want to flee.

and that deep down, kenma knew how much kuro loves this coffee and their cinnamon rolls. kuro comes here with kai and yaku to study. kuro loves the bluish colors of this iodine-smelling cafe, like a family vacation home close to the ocean. kuro loves the large glass canopy which allows him to stare at passers-by, to laugh at the passer-by who runs after his dog, to contemplate the leaves of the cherry trees which turn in the wind. it is a silent, hypnotic waltz; a calm that allows him to remember chemical formulas and mathematical operations. his fountain pen at the tip of his lips and his rectangular glasses on his nose. kuro talks a lot about this place; kenma has already heard a thousand compliments on this cafe with the ropes on the walls and the soft rugs on the floor. kuro talks about it a lot; enough that kenma had an image of the place in his mind. and kuro said how much kenma would love this place, how much they would go here to look each other in the eye, like two lovers who have adored each other for so long that they forgot about it; old lovers, with a slow and languid tenderness.

kenma wants to forget, and kenma wants kuroo to look at him just like grey lovers do in a french seaside cafe. then; _it’s okay, kuro._ two little fingers intertwine. they are almost hidden by the too long and too loose sleeves of kenma's black sweatshirt. just like; their bodies promising something. to each others. to be there, maybe. always. long enough for them to become those two aged lovers with wrinkled, wrinkled skin. it is a promise.

it really is.

sometimes, kenma's gaze lingers on the too-white upright piano, and on the glass vase of the bouquet of peonies on its case. his golden eyes fix, and get lost in memories that kuroo does not share. silence. knees touching under the table. the stubborn fingers of kuroo taking a piece of his cinnamon roll. _claire de lune_ played by two little girls in brown bunches, their fingers too thin and slight to reach the entire keyboard. the whispers of students and the chuckles of young people. the sound of a photo that phones take. _click_. a picture of hot chocolate; pancakes with maple syrup; the hazelnut cookie; French toast drowned with salted butter caramel. _tic-tac_. the wooden pendulum clock. and kenma:

“The flowers’ humidity will damage the piano,” kenma says, voice slow and silent. kenma says it, just as if it was a secret. but he has a certain indifference in his tone, too blatant for kuroo and the years they have shared knowing each other. learning. loving. this false nonchalance. that kuroo pierces.

because kuroo does not know kenma pianist, but kuroo knows kenma and his pianist hands. kuroo knows him like the back of his hand; and his toes, and maybe his whole body. of all his members. kuroo touched him, kenma; he caressed him, he admired him, he adulated him; sometimes, he even cried over, he even cried out, because nothing is perfect, and everything is stuffy. sometimes. a little blackness you don't think you can overcome. heal.

kuroo learned kenma and his fifty-one features of his face; those twenty-three tones his voice can take, and the way kenma cares, the way kenma still remembers, even when he tries not to; kenma who loves without saying it, kenma who cries without doing it, kenma who misses without finding it. again. kenma. kenma. kenma.

“You should go remove them, then,” kuroo smiles. _approach the piano_. “Save a life, do your good deed for the day.” _and stay there_.

kenma looks away of the instrument; his pupils, cat-like, sticking them in his. kenma blinks his eyelashes. and kenma is looking at kuro, like _this_ scene is happening just right on his face. as if he could see, scroll before his golden eyes, the trembling movements of his legs; the way his feet could cross the overly bright room, the way his body could weave its way between the tables, as if the world isn't about to cave in, every time his fingers get closer to the too white wood; this wood damaged by water, these pedals starting to rot. as if kenma could see himself playing over and over again; tap the tips of his fingers against the keys, as if his fingers were melting in the keyboard; as if his hand was light enough to cover the entire keyboard. as if kenma could play. again.

kenma is thinking about something kuro doesn't know; to his doubts and fears that he never shared. he blinks, once; before looking down at the kuro pastry –to no longer see. with his slender fingers, and the delicate silver ring on his middle finger, a simple ring that kuroo won for him at the fairground shootout; with one of his hands too small for a setter, too slight for a pianist, kenma steals a small piece of his brioche. kenma brings it to his lips, and kuro watches his fingers moisten against the tip of his tongue. under the table, their knees touch a little closer. "It’s okay,” kenma said. “It wasn’t even an expensive one, anyways.” _I won’t._

the two little girls are only making wrong keys. it is a shrill, discordant sound that invades the cafe; sometimes, a woman with a strong perfume’s scent comes up to them and asks them to go back and sit down. surely their mother. but the girls shake their heads, with the provocation and fierceness of a child of six, and they return to rest their fingers on the piano a little harder; they don't cease, since they perhaps have enough passion at their fingertips to keep sitting on the leather chair, even if the whole world and the music are against them. _maybe_ , kuroo thinks, _that kenma was like that, too_. it would look like him. because behind this incredible laziness, kenma is all-time faithful to what he loves.

kuroo knows that. and kuroo sees it, when while paying at the counter, kenma's mouth moves too much to say a simply _goodbye_ –the waiter's gaze laying on the piano and the wet vase. the waiter smiles, looking guilty; and he leans in, surely with _thanks_ on his lips, and kuroo knows. it's not just the false keys that sound wrong.

kenma's nonchalant attitude does too.

♪

**_Chopin, Etude, Op.25 – No.11 (Le Vent d'Hiver)_ **

kuroo is eight years old, and he just moved to a new neighborhood in tokyo.

kuroo took about two weeks to find a new volleyball court. with an old net almost torn. dead grass. muddy ground. near a canal filled with almost black water. kuroo goes to this place every day, even though he hasn't fully finished his homework and it might be too cold to be able to go outside. but kuroo goes there anyway; with its new yellow, blue and white ball; with his high socks so that the bandages on his knees and calves do not come off. he has a few scratches on his elbows, and his laces are pulled very tight because his shoes are too big for him.

it's very windy outside. the world seems to be frozen in this cold. the grass is frigid, the trees are numb, the streets are empty; the sky is gray, as if it were about to collide on the frozen roofs, on this already petrified world. and kuroo, he has a smile too big for this gloomy setting.

a happiness too intense for the boy crying against the span of the bridge.

the boy is curled up on himself. his head on his knees. legs up to his chest. his tiny arms encircling his even smaller calves. shaking shoulders; as if thousands of waves were trying to drown him. maybe it’s because kuroo is too far away, but from where he stands with his childish eyes, kuroo thinks they succeed pretty well.

the boy is so tiny in this large ground, in this setting of Death which suits him so well; with his ebony hair and his costume as dark as his locks. the boy is tangled up, and maybe if his gasps of pain weren't so sharp, maybe if the world around them wasn't so quiet; maybe kuroo wouldn't even have heard him. see him. meet him.

kuroo doesn't know his face, but kuroo is eight years old, and he knows a lot of classmates who huddle up against the walls to be out of sight. to protect themselves from this collapsing universe. and kuroo, maybe it's because he has the innocence of an eight-year-old kid, or maybe it’s because of this kindness that his mother taught him, but kuroo; he holds out his hand to them each time. to get them out of the debris. to lift up those broken fragments which compress against their chest; against the beating of their hearts. with the body of an eight-year-old kid. and his palms scarlet. and his volleyball’s ball at his feet. always.

“Are you okay?” kuroo asks, because the boy is squalling even harder every time the wind slams on their cheeks. kuroo, he has a red scarf around his neck and rolled up almost to his nose. because his father forced him to put it on. the guy has a black jacket and a white shirt. and he is shaking. maybe from cold. or from his sobs.

kuroo wonders if the guy have someone to put a scarf around his neck.

when the sobbing guy hears his voice, he tenses. he doesn't raise his face up from his knees. and kuroo can see that around his calves, his hands are tightening. he tucks his feet closer to his chest. and his tears cease, for a second; Kuroo hears him sniffle, and his shoulders are still shaking a little, but less; this time. just like the waves have calmed down. as if the water no longer rose –up to the eyes that kuroo couldn't see.

maybe two seconds later, as kuroo taps his ball a little harder near his stomach, the boy nods. slowly. still his face hidden in his knees. eyes downcast, then. his whole body which bends towards Oblivion. Nothingness. the wind makes his very black hair dance; and very thin hair too; rather long, the length of his strands uneven. around his calves, his oddly small hands are shivering.

“What's your name? Mine, it's Kuroo. Tetsurou Kuroo.” and the boy whispers something inaudible. a timid whisper that dies at the end of his lips. his voice enclosed by the winter wind. his breathe ruined of despair. sadness. sorrow. those kind of tears his mother doesn’t want him to watch on tv. “Sorry, I can’t hear you.”

and the boy freezes, as if the cold has finally killed him; because his hands are no longer trembling. and his shoulders lock up, like he's forgotten how to breathe. the sky turns a little grayer every time kuroo blinks. maybe in a few minutes, it will snow.

the boy has very dark hair...

when he looks up, it seems that it takes all the courage in the world to be able to plant his eyes on his. his tiny hands have only become fists too weak to scare. many of his ebony locks stuck to his red, soppy cheeks. at the end of his upturned nose, as delicate as his fingers, there is still the trace of tears. wet nose. this sadness that the boy let exist.

...and very clear eyes.

“Kenma,” he whispered. his timorous and dismal voice. the way his tongue clicks softly and slowly against his palate; as if the words were jammed deep in his throat. as if speaking was not something he knew how to do. and the guy just said his first name with that shine in those too light eyes; and it is not because of his tears, this veil which crosses his strange pupils, this melted gaze; that his eyes shine. but of anger against the whole world. his black brow furrows, as if he would have liked to disappear inside his knees. forever. dig his own hole to forget his existence. as if kuroo just reminded him that he exists. there is something twinkling in his eyes. those eyes frosted with injustice. as if the whole world was against him, and he had to clench his fists to defend himself. his fragile hands. his nails bitten and broken. his trembling hands with too white knuckles. his childish hands; too soft to be able to fight. maybe that's why, who knows, that the guy curls up hiding from the entire universe. “Kenma Kozume.” he said. his timorous and dismal voice. his bashful sound swept away by the breeze.

now, kuroo can see it. kuroo can see the black tie around his throat. his crumpled and soaked white shirt. his tie almost neglected. his muddy black shoes. his laces undone. his scrutinizing eyes. his piercing pupils. his almond-shaped eyes. his short, wet eyelashes; almost falling on his blue circles. his flat ebony hair; his hair well combed, his hair combed in a parting. the face with soft features; his face scowling.

mourning on his shoulders.

a few months ago, kuroo had worn the same costume. and the same dull, glassy eyes. the same tears on the cheeks too small to contain them all. some slip up to the chin, and they fall into nothingness; impregnated on the fabric of the shirt and pants. almost on their skin. as if they wanted to reach where they belonged. kuroo, he knows.

and he smiles. maybe because kenma won't be able to do it. for now.

and kuroo, he grins big. he smiles for them both.

kuroo drops the ball at his feet. and kenma jumps a little, when kuroo walks up and leans towards him. kenma has his small eyes widening. and up close, kuroo notices that his pupils are shaped like those of a cat. “Don’t you catch a cold, Kenma-kun!” kuroo said, taking off his red scarf. in wool and the scent of his mother's perfume. the scarf smells like summer and better days.

kuroo crouched at the same height as kenma. and he smiles. with all his teeth. kenma does not move, when kuroo puts the scarf around his neck. kuroo rolls it up, and rolls it up, so the cloth can touch the tip of his soaked nose. there are always a few tears stuck in the creases of his eyes. his watery eyes. and kenma takes the end of the scarf in his hands. and he holds it very hard. thanks too shy to say them. but kenma thinks hard about it. enough for kuroo to hear it.

“Play with me, Kenma-kun!” kuroo takes the ball at his feet. and he holds it out under kenma's surprised gaze. all these questions in his eyes. all the words that kenma can't say yet. doesn’t know how –for now. “Toss to me!” kuroo smiles. _play with me._ his narrowed eyes that almost close under his smile. the hazelnut color that kenma can no longer see.

“I don’t know how to play volleyball,” kenma only answers. voice low. uncertain. doubtful. his gaze which rests on the hands on his knees. down, again. at this time, when kenma had seven years old, and kuroo eight; everything seemed to be down. his eyes. his smile. the scores. _his_ coffin.

but the smile of kuroo doesn’t get any smaller. he even laughs. “I will teach you!” a laugh in the collapse of things. a chuckle that promises better days –the recovery of all. the world that will always turn. without hurting him. the world won’t be turned upside-down –no more. kuroo will take the wreckages in his own hands so that they cannot touch his skin; his body; his heart. kuroo will wrap this scarf around his neck, to the end of his nose; the mesh will slip into part of his hair that is too thin and too black, and kuroo will be there; to catch anything that falls with his volleyball’s ball at his feet. and kenma will be in this scarf with the smell of fruit, the smell of the ocean and its constant waves; this water which caresses, which reassures; which cuddles a body, and this piece of fabric that will shelter him. there is that familiar feeling; this tenderness that kenma has lost in the black and white keyboard, in the scores he can no longer play; this heat which no longer capsizes his heart in a certain bleakness he had never known before. and kuroo takes his hand, and kuroo helps him up. pick up whatever has caved in.

“Okay,” kenma finally whispers. “But I warn you. I’ll be crying the whole time.” and kenma gets up, and kuroo takes his wrist between his damaging fingers, and kuroo leads him towards the almost torn net; and kenma, he thinks; he thinks of his wet pants because of the grass’s humidity, his headache, the pain of his too dry eyes. he contemplates of kuroo's smile, his black tangled hair, and his almost curly hair tips. his tanned skin. and the way kuroo tells him:

“That’s fine! I have Kleenex!” and how kuroo explains rules to him he doesn't even understand; how his eyes shine when he tells him about the role of the setter, and how hard he hold the ball against his chest. it’s beautiful, kenma thinks, the way things could be easy.

four and a half years is the time it took kenma to become a pianist; two minutes is the time it took for kenma to become a setter. it’s beautiful, kenma believes, the way kuroo makes everything easy. with his loud smile and his hysterical laughter. his mocking words. his mischievous eyes. his smirk too sharp for his juvenile age.

the way it all comes together. even though they have been scattered _broken_ by suffering.

even if kuroo didn’t actually have any Kleenex.

♪

**look at that; the moon’s out (I love you)**

kenma is waiting for kuroo. he waits for him as if he's waiting for him for a lifetime. in his hands, kenma holds his PSP hard. his fingers glide under the console keys. as flexible and agile as a cat. it's vivid, the way his fingers wiggle and move. they never seem to be in the air. fingertips that never linger.

outside, it is hot without the sun suffocating him. kenma is sitting under a tree, and he's waiting. kuroo. always.

in the busy street, the shop windows reflect the glow of the sun. in front of his eyes, there is a piano shop that kenma pretends not to see. his golden gaze never leave the screen of his console. just as all the answers of the world are there on. and it's not like kenma doesn't know about this store. kenma may know all the piano shops in tokyo. because one day, he had had a little less than three years old and a hand to accompany him through these doors. one day that kenma still remembers. with his legs too short to walk fast. his hands damp with the timidity of his youth. sometimes, one of them would catch on the sleeve of _his_ sweater. because kenma was just less than three years old and worried that all this crowd would crush him. the footsteps of their frantic feet. their relentless gaze of judgment. of whispers. kenma's heart pressed against his chest and; exploded. whenever their eyes rest too long on him and his mediocre body. every time someone looked at him. when he was just less than three years old. still, sometimes; when he has seventeen.

“Kenma,” kuro calls, a little further in the street. he has a gleam of sweat beading on his forehead, because kuro has been running, and the sun is perhaps suffocating him a little. his black lock falls a little more heavily on his right eye. and kuro is handsome. it's not something kenma tried to deny. kuro is handsome, with his black hair that becomes tangled like thousands of thick locks. kuro is handsome, with his dark skin tone that brings out the clarity of his eyes. his very black eyelashes caressing his cheeks; when he blinks; when he smiles loud enough, real enough, with too much joy or malice, and that his lids cover his caramel eyes. kuro is handsome, with his broad and strong shoulders. as if he could bear the evils of all. smiling, moreover. his long lips that fit a little deeper into his tanned skin. just as if everything was easy.

maybe that's why kenma can't help but look at him. raise the eyes of the world he has built for himself. in which he locks himself. his escape that looks at another. “Sorry, I’m late.” kuro breathes, arrived at his side. he has his back bent and his hands on his knees. he tries to catch the breath he has lost. and kenma, he gets up, looking falsely _I don't care_ when he does. because kenma, he knows; he knows how fragile everything is, how the world is on the brink every time he breathes too hard. every time he lives. how all happiness he is afraid to rub shoulders with, is about to collapse.

“Yeah.” kenma just said. in his hands, he strongly hold his console. and his eyes permeate the screen to the violent game. with the tip of his eye, because even if kenma isn't looking, he still notices everything; kenma sees kuro smiling strangely.

and kuro gets up, with his lock caressing his eye. “You were worried, babe?” and he rests his wet chin on his shoulder. kuro will surely get his black t-shirt dirty. with the humidity that makes his face even finer. there is a hand that goes around his waist. but kenma, he does not move. he remains focused on the unreal fight unfolding before his eyes. kenma doesn't bother to push kuro away. and his hot breath brushing against his ear. his heat that suffocates his body. his lips close to his face, admiring him without touching him. “Missed me?”

“People will see us,” kenma only whispers, his breathing stuck in his throat. anguish begins to make his head spin. it is perhaps stupid, this obsession that he has; kenma, this feeling that everyone is looking at him the better to judge him. the better to bury him in a grave that their cruel murmurs have dug. maybe this is because kenma doesn't like attention, and is concerned about what others think of him. in any case, it may be silly, but it takes enough to his heart to make his hands sweaty.

however, kenma loves kuro. it's obvious. for all and especially for himself. even though kenma doesn’t know how to show it when the eyes of the whole world fall on them. the street is empty, cars are scarce, kuro places a delicate and fast kiss on his sopping cheek, with a _fuck them_ that he whispers at the corners of his lips; but kenma, he can only think of this fear; that image of horrified looks he created in his mind. in the depths of his troubles, kenma sometimes wonders; what would _he_ think of that? him, who had the answers to everything; the smiles for all the tears, the tenderness inside his child's palm.

sometimes, kenma forgets. all that loving kindness _he_ had. and kenma, he can only think of the nightmares his mind was creating for him.

and kuroo, he tries to chase them away, slowly; with bits of reality, some _it's going to be fine_ he doesn't say. all that love he's not afraid to show. Maybe, one day; perhaps, who knows, kenma will be able to cry out to him, in his too fragile voice; kenma will be able to shout at him, without his voice breaking, all those words he's too shy to say. all his kisses that he did not know how to return. all his touches. all his caresses. all this tenderness. all this sweetness. all those gestures screaming why his heart was beating.

kenma whispers a little, and kuroo laughs. “Let’s see this movie,” kuroo smiles. breezy voice. jolly beam. kenma can feel kuroo's callused, square hand slipping on his lower back. in his own hands, kenma holds his PSP firmly. his fingers with short clipped fingernails squeeze the buttons in a move too quick for kuroo –apparently. “And don’t hurt your fingers.” kuroo growls, glancing at the bright screen a few times.

“I'd be a hell of a fool if I just hurt myself playing God of War.”

“That’s why I’m trying to keep you from looking stupid.”

“You haven't really done a good job in the last ten years.” kenma mumbles, his voice weary. behind his back, the hand comes to rest in its soft circles; reassuring, as if kenma was still seven years old. as if kenma was afraid again.

(he is.)

and, his hand now in this breathing emptiness, kuro pushes kenma with his shoulder. slightly. “Are you roasting yourself for me?” kuro asks, a false question that does not wait for an answer. his black eyebrows furrowed. as if those words were harsh enough that his facial features tightened.

“Well, someone has to do it,” kenma whispers. and he doesn't stop walking. he keeps looking at his screen. before kenma stops. only because kuro stopped too. the hand still in the air; a body that no longer touches him. kenma glances at him. quickly. out of the corner of his eyes. because for him, for kenma; he did not answer something wrong. it's true that kuro loves him really much. so much fondness. in his words and in his gestures. kuro treats kenma like he's just porcelain. yet, kuro is a mocking guy. he has malicious eyes and a mouth that sends contempt for all others; for all those who breathe the same air. however, with kenma, kuro is gentle; calm even when the world seems to be crumbling before his eyes, even when kuro is too tired to laugh at others, even when kuro drops his style on his notebook full of formulas kenma has never understood. kuro, he's not afraid of anything. kuro, he loves completely; and kuro, he shows it fully.

and kenma, he would have to learn how to do it. one day. when kenma would be enough brave to try.

kenma loves all facets of kuro. each of them. even when kuro bites his lip to blood because of these equations he does not know how to do. even though kuro has red skin and scratched with the love of sport that kenma does not share – _understand_. even if kuro has easily wet eyes in front of these films that kenma laughs at. all those little moments when kuro has a hard time not sinking under the weight of the world on his shoulders; and all those little moments that kuro tries to hide. kenma, he loves kuro. his tears he stows away and his mischievous smiles he proclaims. _be you, in the greatest of you. this is what I want._ his words said.

“Could you stop making comments proving that you lack docosahexaenoic acid?” kuro snaps. kenma is startled. his shoulders jostle. and his eyes leave his game to fix the features of kuro.

that face that relaxes in mockery. because kenma has only to ask. some shy steps. because kuro loves kenma to the moon and back. a PSP stored in a pocket too small. because kuro will win the moon, if kenma wants it. a kiss on the cheek. on tip-toes. redness to the tip of the nose. if kenma asks him. malice in the depths of his pupils. that anguish he's trying to leave at the back of his throat. so that his heart is not at the edge of his lips. and kenma, he loves this sparkle; even more so when his sparks shine on his own skin. a kiss he gives. a smile. a little shy; but sincere. “I will try.”

he will really do it.

♪

**_playing with you_ **

kuroo is nine years old, and he convinces kenma to join his volleyball club.

it's difficult because kenma does not take his eyes off his games and kenma only comes out of his room when kuro takes his hand in his so as not to let go. so that this body which begins to grow does not end up in the same room with others. they've known each other for over a year now; kenma has been passing him on rotten ground for over a year. this ground close to his heart. and kenma, it is not because he is his best friend, but kenma; he has a way of bending his fingers, the strength in the tips of his nails, it's impressive; the way volleyball likes him. the way his cat eyes all see; especially the little details that try to escape their child's fingers. kenma, he has a cage in his palms. kenma catches everything; and when he does, when he has understood the way kuro jumps in the air, at what height and the way his body is positioned; kenma passes the ball to him in perfect time, with a flexibility and agility too intense for kenma not to join a club.

and, kuro, he said to him; he tells him that he needs him at the club, he tells him that he will love volleyball, because with his talent it would be a shame if kenma hates the ball that rubs against his fingers.

it's hard to get kenma's attention. he has his observation everywhere else, except in kuroo’s eyes. kenma looks at him when kuroo can't see him. kenma has his hands either on the keys of his console or on his knees which are gently tapping against the floor. kenma does not look; with his shoulders tucked in and sucking towards the ground. towards this envy of disappearing. even though kenma isn't looking, because he still has that eight-year-old shyness; kenma is listening. without showing it too much. so as not to give false hope. so as not to think he's going to answer.

“I know you don’t like volleyball,” kuro said. smiling and patient eyes. “I know you are not athletic and you're going to have a hard time getting along with everyone. I know everything. But I want you,” he said, firmly; his voice now a little more solemn; as if he believed in it with enough faith that an almost ten years old child can have. “I’m going to play with everything I've got. So that people can enjoy volleyball as much as I do. So that volleyball can live in their heart forever. Just like it does in mine.” and kuro fixes his eyes on his. his eyes full of pride. that passionate glow. almost fierce. kenma almost has a hard time looking away. look elsewhere; miss this impressive ardor for a nine-year-old kid. the way kuro still holds this ball, firmly and perfectly against his chest. kenma has to reveal his head to be able to count on this arch for the things kuro loves.

“That’s my reason for playing.” kuro said. with so much sincerity in his hazel eyes, in his voice; in his words and in his heart; that kenma has trembling eyelashes. he has to blink his eyes a few times, so that all this worship doesn't make his heart stop. between two blinks, maybe, kenma sees kuro bending over. put that ball he cherished so much on his hip. “So… I’m asking you to do that for me. Please be my setter.”

a silence. a break in this gloom with closed curtains. in this house right next to kuro's. in this room with a few game tapes on the floor. a game drive on the bed. on kenma's lap. on his crossed legs and his shoulders covered with a plaid.

“A tiny bit will do…” barely audible tone. almost begging. surely quivering. moist eyes kenma couldn’t see. “Please…give me your support.” there is a choking, because kuro drives away the tears that threaten his throat. tears kenma never saw before. even the time kuro fell in the river. even those hundreds of times kuro took the ball in the face. in rapid and tough force. even the time kuro was clawed with blood on his calves by a cat he tried to feed. even the time kuroo had to carry kenma on his back. for almost two kilometers. the swollen and twisted calf of the kenma. the tears that kenma did not hide. they ran down his plump cheeks; up to his chin, to soak up the kuro t-shirt. on his warm shoulders where Kenma had put his little hands. full of scratches. his complaints which were engulfed in the too starry sky. too big. too blue. as if they were going to collapse on top of their already injured bodies. kuro, he doesn’t cry.

except when he does.

“Please support me in this moment that I’m about to lose heart.” kuro loose, in a voice that breaks. words that get lost inside his own mouth. because of his own cries that choke him. this time, kenma thinks; this time, kenma will fetch them with his own hands. even if they are shaking, even if his palms are not big enough to contain everything; even if his skin is not thick enough to take it all. kenma will try. and he hopes that will be enough.

“Okay,” kenma whispered. fragments of sadness that poison him. dust of hope that prevents him from breathing. kenma, it will blow on everything. to rebuild everything again. leave there a set of aim. “I will do it.” kuro freezes. “I’ll be your setter.”

and kuro raises his head. his crops still leaning in a supplication that kenma had never seen. kuro is used to have mischievous and provocative eyes. and now, right in front of him; kuro has bright eyes and a single tear on his cheek. on his left skin. kenma will breathe hard enough to make it disappear into the silence of his room. kenma will even open his curtains for the sun to kill it. so that it can melt under this heat. _hope_ ; they say.

a smile. as bright as the sun. caramel eyes that close; under all this joy that this body cannot contain. all that gratitude that drives away that tear. all this joy, this energy; this renewal of happiness, that kenma did not suspect he had. "Kenma Kozume," kuro said, an overly sonorous voice that vibrates under the tremors of joy he tries to contain. kuro recovers his ball with these two hands. and he kind of throws it above on each kenma's shoulder. a crowning achievement for one who is not a knight. the one who left his sword somewhere deep in his heart. hide to forget. one is not brave enough to be one.

then; he's laughing. he laughs as if he only knew how to do that. as if it was the only thing he wanted to do.

"I appoint you as my setter!" he exclaims – _shout_ , almost. proudness in this juvenile voice. as if he was born to live this moment. to say these words. firmly in all this bliss. kenma, he has his heart beat tightly. he wants to look down so this too much water inside his eyes doesn't overflow. but kenma can't take his eyes off that smile, of that boy who arrives every morning without knocking on the door; _a good morning_ too loud for the sleeping kenma; this boy who accompanies him to his class, with suspicious and accusing eyes for all his other comrades; this boy who didn't speak much at first, because, sometimes, even his kindness cannot overcome his own shyness. the boy who stayed, even when kenma was not speaking; even when there was this great silence, and these feet swaying in the void; the clock hand with a dull, incessant noise. unbearable, this silence. those afternoons of doing nothing. of saying nothing. and this boy stayed. this boy spoke afterwards; he did, just; that. this boy spoke, even though they were complaints because kenma was beating him at all the games that passed before their eyes. this boy stayed, even though he had the _game over_ steeped in his mind with a hot iron. this boy who shares his meat with him, simply because kenma adulates it; for the simple reason that he is greedy. that's a stupid reason, but an enough reason for this boy; for kuro, who holds his hand when there are too many people in the corridors, in the canteen, in the streets; in his life. kuro.

as if kenma was born to listen to these words.

_playing with him._

♪

**the wandering Stars**

**prisoners of the past**

“Is it true that you play the piano, Kenma-san?” lev asks, one morning of training; too early for a morning, the summer sun still asleep in clouds, with the sharp sound of shoes sliding on the floor, the incessant sound of the ball hitting against skins.

“I used to,” kenma only answers. kenma could have answered _I don't play the piano; I never played_ ; because it's been almost ten years now, and he's sure his fingers don't even know how to position themselves anymore. but, yet, for some reason beyond him, kenma does not dare to let _this_ no existed.

kenma feels an arm around his shoulder; an arm whose hand swings around his neck. a familiar presence by his side. teasing he is used to hearing. “Kenma is a very good pianist. He won several big contests.” _and I smashed all their trophies on the ground_ , Kenma thinks. “If you weren't so ignorant, Lev, you would know that Kenma was a big figure in junior competitions.”

kenma lifts his head a little to give kuro a weary look. kuro, he who has his chin proudly raised; eyes that shine with mischief and daring. this man who is ready to face the whole world. one day; maybe. he will do it. with the exact smile he is used to wear. “You can still watch it on Youtube.”

kenma growls, a little; and kuro smiles harder. seeing some of his white teeth. kenma hits him in the ribs; and _ouch_ , kuro groans. he moans and laughs. both of them. “Please, don’t do that.” kenma says in the direction of Lev who has been whispering for a few minutes some _kenma-san is so cool._ with his almost childish voice and his tone of wonder. in his green eyes, there are a few stars. he looks at kenma as if he were a treasure.

“Doing what?” kuro smiles. that provocative smile. a hand on his stomach, and that smirk that hardly ever leaves him. maybe kenma should hit him harder, so that he can sweep it away from his overly masculine face.

“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Lev,” he glances at kuro. accuser and reprobate. "You, Kuroo, you are a lost cause."

“How mean, Ken-chan!”

“No.”

“But Ken-ch–“

“Don’t.” kenma has his nose turned up in a frozen face of disgust that he doesn't try to hide. kuro rests his chin on his shoulders, and kenma pushes him away with his too small hands, a gourd between his fingers. “Call me like that again, and I'll forget you exist.”

“I’m too hard to forget,” kuroo smiles. before taking the blue gourd from his hand, even though Kenma grinds his teeth in a scowl. _you are_ , kenma thinks. a whispered thought. and kuroo, stealing the gourd from his fingers, tenderly brushes his fingers with the tips of his. kenma glares at him, frowning; but kuroo only laughs. he whispers _see ya babe_ before bringing the gourd to his mouth. the water that makes his Adam's apple shiver.

and kuroo walks away to teach Lev to receive, or something like that; because kuroo yells at Lev grunts almost too exasperated to be understood. and Lev complains over and over again. under the laughing eye of Yasufumi Nekomata.

“Kenma,” Yamamoto calls. he approaches, laughing embarrassed, his hand behind his neck. “Sorry, I just heard you talking with Lev. And my little sis has been looking for a piano teacher for a long time. She is, like, super complicated. Well, you know her. So uh, hm, would you be interested?” kenma does not have time to open his mouth that yamamoto adds: “You’ll be paid, of course.”

and kenma reflects. he thinks of kuroo's birthday which is coming in a few weeks. also thinking about touching a piano again. hearing sounds he can’t. only the way _his_ body fell when kenma has pressed three white and two black keys too long. the way Death tickled under his fingers. “I… I’m not really sure about that, Yamamoto.” kenma whispers. confused look. two thick, furrowed brows. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” _Because I can’t play._

_No more._

“Please, Kenma!” yamamoto claps his hands together, just like a sign of prayer; and bow his head in front of them. the dry, thudded noise shakes the gymnasium. on his neck, kenma can feel all eyes. especially a very clear; very caramel with a chewy sparkle. “My sister adores you, and she really has a thing for the piano and the sound that this thing can make. She would be very happy to have you. Just a try, please.”

the looks on his quivering body made his lips falter. kenma can feel his fingertips getting wet. this dampness of anguish. it will kill him, one day; his breathing that hangs in his chest because everything is getting too big to bear; too heavy to follow, too fast for his mind languishing with fear. this great hall become silent. the balloons that no longer bounce in a thud. the murmurs of judgments and insults that can pass through the door of their lips, who knows? kenma does not know. the world he created for himself, built with that abstract worry, too free to catch, too powerful to be calmed, crumbling under his eyelids. and with his heart pounding, kenma mutters: “O-okay. I guess.”

and yamamoto smiles. he smiles like he's never smiled before. he has his ears pointing towards the rising sun. smile arisen. kenma, he tries to learn to breathe. to breathe again. thinking about five things he can see. just like the psychologist told him. _that_ , kenma remembers.

_Yamamoto and his pat on the shoulder. the ball balanced on Lev’s head. Kuro's worried look. Yaku’s kick on the back of Lev. the mischievous smile of the coach._

three things he can hear. “That’s so cool!” yamamoto exclaims. “Thank you, dude!” laughter in the voice and smile on the face. he would jump almost to the ceiling, if he had always been six years old and a little less. and; “Do you think it's a circus here, you idiot?” yaku said in this whole silence which begins to disappear. green eyes that lose some of their sparkles. _would have been funny_ _though_ whispered between two very thin pink lips. gray fringe falling over his eyes. on his gaze lowered to the ground. and kuro, he gets closer to a reasonable distance, as if he's afraid that kenma will run away never to come back – if too close. he would be able to, right now; he would have done it, kenma; go somewhere else to flee the place where his heart begins to die. being buried by the shovel of anxiety and memories. those of Death who is now coming for him.

“You okay?” kuro does. the hand forward, without really being _forward_ ; hand in the air, always, always, because kenma may be too far away for kuro to touch. it's reassuring and frightening at the same time. because kenma doesn't like being touched, but kenma doesn't want to die. he wants to disappear without his heart stopping; he wants his heart to stop beating so painfully, so fast and so hard against his too frail chest to be able to bear it; all the howls that it says to him, that it whispers to him; showing that it exists; always and again. it still exists in this routine angst. and kenma, he wants to stop thinking. stop remembering. the keyboard keys he can feel under his fingerprints. his foot slipping under the pedal. and he taps, taps; hit, hit; banging, again, and again, to destroy this ridiculous thing, even if it's only his own blows that are destroying _him_. don’t want to think. right now. never again. about him, right now. ever. again. stop.

stop.

catch up with this body which falls to the ground; who falls at his feet, who brushes his arms; his fingers too small to be able to rescue him. _stop_. this note, a _fa_ if he remembers well, and he remembers it, of course; he cannot forget, especially not; this fall, this death in the music, in the scores before his eyes. how could he forget? _he wants to_. he played, he played; his fingers slid over the entirety of the notes, as light as a feather; maybe more. there was something divine in the way he played that day; _love's joy_ by Liebesfreud, and the music was dancing; it was a palette of a thousand colors, wriggling under their eyes, with that rapidity of the fingers; he caressed the piano, and he adores it, _he doesn’t anymore_ ; cherishes it enough so that the sound was tender, and soft; enough for him to simply play. this music which skipped under his eyelids; resplendent, alive; happy and sweet; she was dancing, not a waltz; something more joyful, livelier; before dying, collapsing under his fingers; chipping in the silence.

 _stop_.

“You don’t have to do this, ya know?” kuro says. removing the denim jacket from his shoulders. he slips it around his seat, shakes the collar of his T-shirt in the heat – the coffee seems to have a clime problem, the slight heat sticking against the large windows.

“I know,” kenma answers. low voice. the sound of a seat against the tiled floor. kuro sitting down. kenma is ready to put his hands up to his mouth, to bite his nails already too short, but kuro eagerly takes his hand in his. kenma lowers his head. blonde strands in front of his eyes. kuro intertwine their fingers together. under the table. the metal of kenma’s ring against his skin. kenma whispers, his shoulders slumped: “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“Maybe because you are missing it,” kuro smiles. he sees kenma's dark gaze. smiles harder. “Deep, deep down.” he feels kenma squeeze his hand harder. maybe a little too much to make it innocent. his thin black eyebrows darken. his upturned nose. in a scowl. “Or maybe you're a capitalist who loves money far too much for his own good.”

“I prefer that,” kenma says. a waitress with dyed red hair who comes to take their order. a cinnamon roll, _please_. a lemonade, _thank_ _you_. her pen taps against the sheets of her black notebook. she whispers _I will be back soon_ to leave. the notebook that slips into the pocket of her white apron. “I don’t even know how to play anymore,” kenma finally breathes. breaking the comfortable silence. stopping the thumb stroking the back of his hand. hair caressing his pink and warm cheek. “I think I am making a fool of myself.”

“Don’t say such things in front of your guardian angel.” kuro warns, falsely offended. and laughter in their eyes. “You gonna teach her how to play _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_ , right?” Nod. “Even me, I can play this thing. Everyone knows how to play these, like, three notes?” kenma is about to respond, but kuroo is faster. “Well, everyone except the Yamamoto, apparently. But I don’t think they are a reference.”

“First of all,” kenma begins, lips between his teeth. his eyes at the top of his eyelids. “You don’t know how to play _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_. You only know the theme of the song. There are actually twelve variations of the score. The theme is super easy, yeah. But I’ll be happy to see you playing the second variation, you, sir-calloused-and-big-fingers.” he thinks, for two seconds. the time kuro blinks his eyelets. “Or the seventh. the seventh variation is such an ass.”

oddly, kuroo does not respond. he smiles tenderly. his chin under one of his palms. smiling like an idiot. as if he was happy. “I love seeing you passionate.” he says, with his tongue taking the time to snap against his palate. taking the time to let these words exist. so that kenma benefits, as much as he can; if the swift time gives him the satisfaction of hearing them loud enough to be able to remember.

his blonde hair slides down his cheeks, hiding the pink of his cheekbones. “I’m not being passionate. I’m being pissed.” kuro lets out an amused hiss. he leans over the table, a few yards from the tip of his nose, his eyes teasing. smirking. arms crossed. heart opened.

“The real angry Kenma does not have the strength to let it be known,” kuro grins like a Cheshire cat. “It is a shy beast who does not like conflict. The real impatient and passionate Kenma tries to hide it by being grumpy. I know, I studied this beast over the last ten years.”

dark gaze. foot that tries to crush the other. under the table. usual thing. kuro avoids it. and he smiles. again. mocker. bigger and stronger. kenma never knew how that could be possible; to smile _this_ great. even if it shines with mockery and teasing. “You misseeed it,” kuro sings. “So predictable.” he sighs, deceptively annoyed. his eyes almost closed by his illusory weariness.

“You will see what I will miss tonight,” kenma grumbles. passive and slow voice. his feet tapping against the ground. failing to tap the calf of kuro. a pout. pursed lips. frowned eyebrows.

“Is that a sex threat?” kuro surprised. slightly rounder eyes. falling smile. before being reborn –again. “Because it kinda turns me–”

throat clearing. “Sorry,” she said. the waitress with very long eyelashes, trapped in the canvases of her mascara. she puts down the lemonade and the pastry without glancing at them. and she leaves, as quickly as she came. the sound of her heels against the tiles.

kuro takes a sip of the lemonade, even though kenma whispers some _it’s mine_ getting lost in his throat. words said only to be. words without a meaning. kenma takes a tip of his brioche between his fingers, and kuroo whispers _it's mine_ to have a laugh. the bamboo straw still in the corner of his mouth. if kenma didn't have his mouth full, he would have stuck out his tongue.

“Anyways,” kuro begins, twisting the straw between his fingers. the ice cubes rubbing against the glass. “It's just one session. Akane-kun already knows the basics of the piano. It will be fine. Just be pretty and smile. The Yamamoto won’t notice a thing.”

“Yeah.” kenma just answers. his knees starting to shake. “They’re late.”

“Always,” kuro hands him his lemonade. with one of his fingers, he slides the tip of his skin over the iced sugar. “Why don’t you practice a bit? Before they finally bless us with their presence.” kuroo nods towards the white upright piano. empty of people. the free seat. empty of sound.

“I've practiced a bit already,” kenma whispers. embarrassed by a confession that kuroo hadn't guessed. kuro, he has a raised eyebrow. because his room is right in front of the Kozume music room, and last night he hadn't heard anything. he never heard kenma play. neither years ago, nor yesterday. never. maybe kuroo is a little excited, his sneakers are hitting the ground a little faster, he's cracking his fingers a little more often; but kuro tries to hide it, because he doesn't want kenma to panic. so he keeps his impatience for himself. and his questions on his face. and kenma sees it, explains: “With an app on my phone.”

“I see.” kuroo wants to ask a thousand questions. harass kenma with query; enough interrogations for him to not have time to answer all of them. to drown under this euphoria, almost; this restlessness to see him as he had never seen him before. see all his facets. kenma knows all about kuro, and kuroo, he is missing a little piece; a fragment of kenma, so he can shout out to the whole world, proud as he has never been, that he knows kenma kozume like the back of his hand. in the entirety of his existence. the videos of kenma playing at six years old and a little younger, sometimes a little older; that is no longer enough. it never was, but kuroo is a patient man. he would wait for kenma for a lifetime, if kenma asks him. “How was it?” kuroo asks, he squeezes the fabric of his pants in one of his hands. in his palm, he's almost crumpling his jeans. he has his eyes down on his cinnamon roll, because kuroo is afraid to look up and betray that dancer waltzing there inside.

kuroo, he wants to know. even if he is unfamiliar with the piano. and his fingers are surely too large to play on it as well as kenma. but kuroo, he wants to know. why play on an application when he has a piano at home. he wants to listen to kenma as if he could only hear him alone. maybe this is already is; but kuroo wants kenma's words to change. he wants kenma's words to dance.

kenma is about to answer, his head tilted, as if he wanted to recall a feeling already forgotten; when the bell of the front door vibrates in the light conversations of the cafe, and yamamoto's sister arrives as fast as the wind blowing its way inside. “I’m sorry, I’m late, Kenma-sensei!” she exclaims, her two brown quilts falling over her face, when she bows over. she exclaims too loudly, perhaps; because some customers turn their curious eyes on them.

“That’s alright,” kenma says. she lifts her head, stars in her eyes, smiling from ear to ear. “And please, don’t call me like that.” he adds, a little embarrassed, his eyes shifty.

“Is Kenma-sensei blushing?” kuroo teases.

“I think so, dude.” yamamoto said, smiling, as he approached. he takes off his jacket, takes his place at their side. shake kuroo's hand like they learned to do when he was a first year. “By the way, sorry, she’s late.” he adds, teasing again; nodding towards the still childish features of his sister.

his sister screams a little louder, turning to him, dark gaze, her thick eyebrows frowning enough to meet. pointing his finger at his face that doesn't care, “It was your fault!” she shout, almost; before they resume an already advanced argument, kenma summons all the strength he lacks to clear his throat and get their attention. but it does not work; as silent as a whisper. kuroo sees it, hides his smile behind one of his hands, and says, in his deeper and louder voice: “Children,” kuro calls. captain's voice. “I think _Kenma-sensei_ can’t wait to play.”

kenma glares at him. red nose because of the different eyes on them. the yamamoto speak very loudly; they have thick voices, and kenma is surprised that they haven't been kicked out of the cafe. maybe it's because of kuro's familiar face, and his matted black hair that no one misses. who knows?

“Sorry again, Kenma-san!” Akane says. she sticks her tongue out at her brother, and he returns her the same pout, before taking kenma’s wrist under the table, enthusiastic and excited like the child she is. “Let’s go!” she drags him to the singly piano. kenma's lowered shoulders. his legs moving towards his old nightmares. he mutters a few words which are lost in her fervor.

on the back of his neck, kenma can feel kuroo's smile and yamamoto's laughter.

“O-okay,” kenma says. akane searches her shoulder bag for a few crumpled leaves. scores that she printed; black ink, sometimes, kenma can see; disappears in the whiteness of the leaf. she places it on the wooden desk, and kenma watches; he's standing there, closer to the piano than he's ever been for the past nine years, and he's watching her doing things that had become a perfect every day for him; a while ago. a time that kenma is remembering.

akane sits on the seat too big for her, her feet dragging in the air and she looks at him as if kenma were a divine apparition. or something like that. kenma tries to escape her gaze. bold and cheeky dark eyes. they shine with desire. those still tiny fingers on the piano keys. kenma doesn't want to look at her, because he remembers now; kenma remembers a little; kenma knows he was a bit like her, back then. a time he tried to forget. forgetting this desire that makes their body move on its own. that ardor that burns their dilated pupils.

with one of his hands, kenma holds the end of his black t-shirt. with the tips of his fingers, he plays with the fabric. fold it. rubs it. caress it. everything to forget. “Because you can't touch the pedals, I'll take care of it. It’s okay with you?"

she looks at him like a fish out of water. her head to the side, she blinks, and lets go, whispered and uncertain voice: “Pedals?”

“Yeah. The things under your feet.”

“Oh!” she laughs. lightly. “I totally forgot about that.” _lucky girl,_ kenma thinks. because kenma remembers everything; for almost nine years, kenma realizes; he has just ignored all –not forget. he still knows the roles of the pedals by heart; the locations of the eighty-eight notes of his whole body; with all his heart; he learned them when he was very young, and he never forgot them again. they imprinted themselves on him as if they belonged here. they melted their souls and their essences inside his skin, inside his body; deeper still, and kenma will remember, even when he's dead. kenma will remember, he knows it; kenma realizes, even though he tries to ignore it, that these things have become a part of him. he would have to carve his skin, cut his fingertips in the _hope_ of forgetting. kenma knows that won't be enough. it will never be.

“Do you know their use?” kenma asks with care. ton enough slow and soft. he didn’t know he could patient, but here he is; the raging games he plays built some forbearance he didn’t except. kenma thinks; with smile in his mind and laugh in his heart, kenma thinks; that’s maybe why he was able to stand kuro for so long.

she shakes her head, her puffy brown hair in the air; round eyes, curious eyes. “Hm. Yeah. Okay.” kenma breathes. “You have three pedals. Each has a different purpose. They allow you to change the sound. It helps to interpret a score differently from the original. Their usefulness may vary depending on the type of piano you play. We play on an upright piano. So, okay. Do you see the right pedal? The one all right?” Nod. “It's just to hold the sound and make it last. Even if you’re not touching the key anymore. It allows a more generous sound. Smoother play, too.”

she quickly nods. his mouth slightly ajar. she longs for his words. in his hand, kenma squeezes the fabric tighter. “Okay. Hm, for the middle pedal, its utility resembles the right petal, but they are in fact very different from each other. The middle pedal is used to avoid cacophony by prolonging the sound. It allows you to play with both hands for a more complex part of the score. The pedal continues to sound the last note played, basically.”

kenma struggles with his urge to speak faster because he is afraid of being too talkative, or being too boring, or that she doesn't care. something like that. he tries to remember that her big eyes are always shining. fight the growing wetness on his fingertips. the lump that forms in his throat to cut off all breaths. “Yeah. For the last, hm, the left pedal, it really depends on the pianos. On a piano like this, we will say that it allows a softer sound.”

“Thank you, Kenma-san!” she shouts – almost. she has her fingers caressing the notes of the piano, her gaze wavering between kenma and the keys, and the pedals. look everywhere; concentrated desire. “I already learnt lots from you!”

“Call me Kenma,” he says. “Okay. Hm. You must first master the keys. You need to know their locations even when your eyes are closed. It really is important.”

“Got it!” she smiles.

“Hm. Okay. So, I'll be your right hand, okay? This way you learn the position of your left hand. The notes in this score are easier because they are denser, and longer. They are linked less quickly. Once you have mastered this part, you can take care of the entire keyboard.” he clears his throat. maybe a little embarrassed. he scratches the tip of his nose, furtively. resist the urge to bite your nails. “Sounds great?” he asks. low and easy – he tries.

“Amazing!”

kuroo has hand on his chin, dreamy eyes, happy smile. he admires the way kenma stands, almost too shy to exist; the way his shoulders drop, the way he plays with his t-shirt, the way the tips of his blonde locks brush the tip of his chin. his fine facial features; harmonious, and soft. the way his mouth stirs; his slow and serious words, his effacement at the end of his lips.

“Is it me or Kenma looks so much cooler right now?” yamamoto says. mouth full of frozen mochi he ordered. lips contorted with light flour.

“Kenma always has been so cool,” kuroo sings. as soon as kuroo was eight years old and he met his too clear eyes; when kenma was already strong in his great weakness.

when kenma glances furtively in their direction, kuroo waves his hand, big smile; thumb up. spectator of upcoming music. and kenma looks down. “Let’s get started,” he whispers. _idiot,_ he thinks. even if his heart is smiling – just a bit.

there is silence. air stuck in weightlessness. akane tries to apply, kenma sees it; she sticks her tongue out a little, she strokes her lips to try to concentrate. the looks on them that kenma tries to forget. he positions his foot under the damper pedal, a position he had not done for a long time; and when his foot touches the wood, the contact seems natural, his foot is light; as if he were just another member of the instrument. it feels good, kenma thinks. even if akane is a bit slow, because she can't spot keys fast enough; but _it's okay_ , kenma whispered; seeing the panic in her dark eyes as kenma's fingers go a little speedier. he tries to go at her own pace, so as not to rush her into the complicated and the unknown. kenma is not a great sentimentalist, but he can understand how scary it is; right now, he's got a few curious eyes on him, maybe ten, and that's already enough to make his heart tremble. _try to follow._

and kenma thinks how easy it could be to play now; he can't remember how it was that simple, to let his slender fingers slide over the keys. it's fluid, kenma thinks. his hands no longer resemble water flowing over rocks. it's soft, it's light; thousands of colors under his eyelids, which dance to flee in the air. the way his fingers slide without thinking. instinctive. spontaneous. as if he had never stopped playing. because by dint of thinking about it, every day for nine years; by dint of thinking about it, of remembering not to remember, kenma thought about it. again and again. enough so that everything suddenly turns into a shy playlist in the back of his mind. when he was playing volleyball. when he kissed kuroo. when he was doing his homework. when he stroked his cat. when he was fleeing his music room. when he was thinking of nothing, and everything at the same time; when he recalled not to think about it, and thought anyway. the way his fingers subconsciously played in air, every time he got bored –an invisible keyboard under his hands. a nightmare _memories_ that awaited him every time his head touched his pillow. the touches that imprint on his prints every time his eyelids closed.

it’s beautiful, kenma thinks, how much he missed music.

and how he can hear it again.

_when you’re not supposed to._

and his hand moves away from the piano. electricity on the keys. guilt in heart. Death in mind. this is enough so that kenma no longer plays.

“Why did you stop, Kenma-san!?” akane laments, eyes almost sad. kenma hadn't realized that she had stopped playing to listen to him better. and kenma, he blames himself. for a thousand reasons, perhaps. too many causes; not enough time. “It was so cool!”

“I’m sorry,” he shakes. “Sorry.”

from here, kenma hopes _he_ can hear it. even if kenma’s whisper is too low, this immense past imprisoned in his heart, whose pudding beats under the tips of his fingers; kenma hopes, because he only hopes, that time slips without the world collapsing. and to prevent the collapse of the world, kenma doesn’t do a thing – expecting the world to freeze too.

yet, all around; too loud not to see it, too bright not to hear it, the world is starting to move again.

“It wasn’t _so_ bad,” kuro tries. “It could have been worse.” kenma taps his fingers on his phone screen. under their feet, the rails are shaking. and kuroo is pretty sure that kenma is tapping on this stupid game so as not to overthink it. to think about something else. kuroo leans closer so his shoulder can touch his.

“I traumatized her,” kenma protests weakly, his arms falling to his knees. his bust stretched out towards nothingness. the brightness of the screen shining through his eyes.

“You _didn't_ traumatize her. She didn't think it would be that complicated, that's all. And the Yamamoto are easily traumatizable.”

“It’s not even a word.”

“It is now.”

“Is not.”

“It is.”

kenma sighs. look at kuroo's smile. only a little. it's less than a look, even. “Is not.” kenma says, though this familiar conversation warming his compressed heart. pretend nothing has changed. that the world does not turn. that the world is not at the point of slumping, with all his weakness and all his errors. as if they could escape the debris.

there is silence, because kuroo lets him hope; he does just that, kuro; let it hang out. protect him from thousands of possibilities. a future Kenma doesn't think he deserves. “It is.”

and kenma is silent. because he is used to being silent. to let the noiselessness exist; the quietness of his defeat. of his flight. and kuro, he always catches up with him. with his hands too hard, dry; the scratches of his passions, the gestures of his love.

“You were smiling.” kuro says. kuro, he only says three words. it may be three words; too many, too much already; they drummer against the memories, they spread throughout his mind; to _stay there_. so he can think about it. again. _you were smiling_ , kuro said. it is nothing, it is only a remark of a facet, of the thousands of poises that his face can be converted; a facet for a piano. a rare pout; unknown to be almost precious. she had been lost herself in his thousands of fine and grotesque expressions. kuro saw it; and he stretched out his hands, a little too hard; he held out his hands because kenma will never do it; his heart is not burning for courage, and his arms are slender. kenma, he isn’t the one who can; kenma, he can only do one thing. and maybe that's why he smiled.

and kuro grabbed it.

♪

**_you were hiding for me to find you_ **

****

it is an innocent hide and seek. kenma does not know how to play it; he hides behind walls, behind doors; only. kenma does not know how to disperse. and kuro, he has curious eyes; enough courage in the heart to venture into the unknown. kenma, he doesn't know how to do that. his feet seem to be rooting to the ground. he will die alone, kenma thinks. unable to move. kenma can only be found.

he will die having known only Death.

it is an innocent hide and seek. it is very hot outside; the scorching air comes in through the windows, drying up the flowers that Kenma's mother took a long time to live. the song crickets that kenma and kuroo looked for, and did not find. the summer sounds that evaporate to their ears. invisible to the eyes, essential for summer and its decor. the too strong sun crushes on the parishes of the windows; it burns the soil; fades the energy, feeds this fatigue that kenma and kuro are too young to have. nine years and eight years old. it's not a lot. it is enough to be invincible.

kuro's mother wouldn't let him take out the volleyball in hand. it's too hot, she said. it's dangerous, she said. the stern gaze, the liquid of her cold coffee still stuck between the broken lips. kuroo is nine years old, and he doesn't understand how something that is loved and that loves back can be dangerous. nine years; invincible and stainless.

it's a hide-and-seek in the walls of kenma's house that kuroo knows all too well; without knowing it at all. there are some mysteries behind the doors. certain doors that kenma does not open to him. but kenma opens to him this of his room, that of his heart; soon, that of his secrets.

it's a hide-and-seek that has turned into sadness because kuroo opened a door he shouldn't have opened. he knows it. kuro knows it as soon as he sees the gigantic dusty piano in front of him, the hundreds of crumpled and torn leaves on the floor; the curtains preventing all life from coming. living here. kuroo, he's known kenma for almost two years; he comes to his house almost every day, even when it rains too hard or when it is too hot; kuroo no longer needs to ring the doorbell of the kozume for them to know of his presence. they know that. she is so strong that she seems immortal.

kenma's presence, now behind him, seemed stifling. kuroo doesn't have to turn around to see it. “What are you doing here.” kenma whispers; it is not a question, because kenma does not seek to know. kenma just wants to close that door. banish it. destroy it. push kuroo outside. grow any life that approaches it. including his. burn everything. that all flambe.

that everything dies.

“I didn’t know you had a piano,” kuro just answers. kuro turns around. and he smiles. because kenma's gaze is too dark that it takes a little light not to make them both dim. kenma squeezes a piece of his black t-shirt that is too big for him. kuroo knows that kenma has secrets. kenma doesn't speak much. he is not very talkative. kuroo often speaks for both of them. that doesn't bother kenma. that doesn't bother kuroo. sacred word they passed without telling each other.

yet, when kuro is so close to this intimacy that kenma deprives him of, when kuroo can now come close to the inaccessible; he wants to take the sacred from the unspeaking word, and make it profane.

“Yeah… And what about it.” kenma grumpy. shrill voice. pursed lips. daggers in his eyes. its golden color almost orange. it’s new, kuroo thinks. it’s okay.

“That's so cool,” kuroo exclaims. “I would have liked to have such a thing. So I can brag to people at my school.”

silence. “Do you play it?”

“I don’t.” kuroo saw his name, _Kenma Kozume,_ marked on the broken trophies. the trophies which are nothing more than debris. but he said nothing. because kenma squeezes the fabric even tighter between his fingers, shoulders drooping as if he carried all the evils in the world, as if his body was about to be shaken, once again, from the same impetuous waves kuroo had known.

“That’s cool.” kuroo walks into the room. the wood creaks under his feet. the dust dances before his eyes. kenma follows him, without going through the door. kenma is too shy to ask her to leave; and kuroo is too cheeky to go. “The room overlooks my bedroom. I always wondered what this room was.”

“You know now.”

kuroo laughs. “Yes.” abruptly, kuroo turns to kenma; kenma, he jumps at this sudden enthusiasm. “We could pass some tosses to each other through the windows.” kuroo shouts, happy voice. fist in the air. as a sign of victory. as if kenma had crossed the threshold of the door. as if kenma could do it – but kuroo, he doesn’t know yet.

kenma looks at him like he's seeing someone else. the monotony of his eyes. thoughts in his mind; hundreds, they parade to go away; others exist to stay there. and kenma sticks to it. he clings to it. enough for his thoughts, these questions that Kenma can't answer, and never will, rush to the door of his mouth. kenma has to swallow them so as not to sound crazy. so that they don't suffocate in this room with melting walls and hidden sun. kenma keeps some words in his heart to build a cemetery, inside, deep, with his own responses. and yet, there is one, obsessive since the day kuroo extended a hand to him which he took; a single question which does not want to die. and before she kills him, before she drives him mad, kenma lets her run away. kenma lets her exist in the heat of this summer.

“Why are you so hooked on volleyball, anyways.”

slowly, in suffocating softness, the fist dies and buries itself against one of his hips. kuro looks at him. caramel eyes as big as flying saucers. an astonishment that paralyzes him. it is not the first time that kenma surprises kuroo, but it is a different amazement. because, while the sun burns a little harder, outside; by the time the song of the crickets reached them, kuroo smiled. the question is surprising, cause the answer is obvious. it’s undeniable; for kuroo, because he hasn't forgotten. the old smile, the eyes wrinkled with happiness. kuroo did not want to forget. kuroo liked the memories, even the worst; he has learned to love them, because he knows that when you love and are loved in return, nothing hurts anymore.

“My grandmother was a professional player. She taught me how to play.” _she taught me to love something. between the cries of the walls of the house, between the violence of the slaps, between this resentment of having loved and of no longer loving, of no longer being loved; love another, adulate another wedding ring from the one on your ring finger, she showed me how I could escape those screams that made me cry, that trapped me under the bed, waiting for them to die; waiting, hoping, for one day, for them to be too tired of hating each other. learn to love each other again. maybe that's why I care about memories so much._ “She was fond of volleyball, so much, it was contagious.” _and when I play, when I touch the ball I grew up with, the object that dried my tears, the gift she left me, because her frizzy fingers are no longer there to chase away my blues; when I play, I remember. I remember the word she taught me without saying it. this word that I only knew from others; elsewhere, everywhere, except at home, except around me. that word was all over her, and she gave it to me._ “That’s all.”

 _and I owe it to myself to cherish it, as she did; as she taught me, so those who didn't know it, like me, would. pass this word on. to play, to play, so that my arms bleed, so that I fall; so that others do not forget. so that this love will be eternal. when she was not. to remember. to let nothing die again_.

making this word invincible.

♪

**I have too much love, too much love for this boy with the hands of a pianist, too much love, it's over**

[ _mom,_ 5:38pm] : attached image.

[ _mom_ , 5:38pm] : We have just received this inscription letter... We are very happy for you. We support you in your decision. _Otoosan_ and _Okaasan_ are very proud. I’m making an apple pie tonight.

[ _mom_ , 5:41pm] : You can tell to Tetsurou-kun to stay over.

kenma looks at this image, kenma stares at its thousands of pixels without seeing them, kenma cannot take his eyes off the words he has already read, a long, long time ago, from a coat of arms of which he knows all the seams, all the outlines. kenma grips his phone tightly, and he is shaking; he knows it, because his heart eardrums too hard against his chest for him to be indifferent. kenma feels a drop of sweat running down his cheek.

he remembers.

in this locker room with the smell of heavy perspiration, the pungent scent of male deodorants, the world begins to spin again.

“You okay?” kenma hears kuro ask. vibrant voice behind his shoulder. worry. kenma cannot move, because his thoughts are jostling; waking up, tearing themselves apart, bleeding. his gaze hangs, weighs itself down, in distress. weakness rises without his body, immobilizes him in his memories; his heart turned to mud, his blood no longer circulating, his words at the end of his lips; drowned; its _why_ , and _how_ ; its responses that kenma doesn't want to think about.

kenma remembers. and kenma knows.

of a superhuman effort, almost; with a difficult gesture, he shows the image to kuroo. he doesn’t want to know, and he says. “Explain.” _it's not your kind of sneaking shots, then; explain to me. I have daggers in my back, they slipped from your hands; put them off. even if I bleed, bleed to death; take them back. take everything back. like you are used to do. every day. take this world under your arms stronger than mine, and destroy it._ “Kuroo.”

this name, formulated thus, said in this way; it sounds wrong. but kenma says it anyway. this word settles in the heavy silence of the cloakroom, this word makes its way to the ears of others; of all, but kenma doesn't care. of this world. kenma knows that kuroo will take it back. kuroo is going to destroy it for him, right? he would never put it before his eyes. _right?_

kenma remembers, and kenma no longer knows.

“Let’s go,” yaku whispers to lev; he takes him by the sleeve, his green eyes shining with innocence. lev is perhaps ignoring the storm that threatens their bodies, the lightning that begins to pierce through the invisible clouds; but yaku, he sees them. this silent tornado; violently soundless, too fierce to have time to make them.

they go away. kuroo would have gone away, because there is something unmistakable about kenma; his body, usually so loose, become so tense. kuroo, he wants to put his hand on his shoulders, to stroke him, to brush him; possess him so that he can see, kenma, through his eyes, the thousands of colors he is missing. instead, he murmurs.

“You were smiling.” _weirdly, you don’t anymore._

three words, again. always the same. kenma wants to scream, to scream, that the walls shake, that his cries destroy the whole earth. there is his name, on this inscription, on this sheet that kenma has seen so many times, on this piece of paper that he no longer wanted to see. it's just paper, it's nothing, it's just a tiny material against billions of others. it is nothing, and it is already too much. there's his name on it. a date. his name. the instrument he no longer plays. his name. a coat of arms he knows. a coat of arms on the trophies that are no longer.

because he destroyed them, that; kenma remembers. he still has the bleeding on his skin. the scars that the pain leaves. scars that open, a little harder each time he looks at his name, those two names, on this inscription to what he doesn't want to do. where he doesn't want to go.

“I just thought…” kuroo tries. he breathes. scratching the back of his neck. the sound echoes too loudly in this silence that they share and that kenma does not try to break. kenma does not look at him. kenma got lost. he is still on this platform, with the lights too bright; at the piano too large, at his child's size. kenma is no longer with kuro, kenma got caught in the dust of the past that still resided under his skin. kenma is where he is, ten years old, he drops the leathern stool while bending down to greet an audience he can’t watch.

“I just want to see you happy.” happy. happy. right. this word means something to him, because kenma remembers. he always has it under his fingers, fleeing his heart. he was happy a while ago; when he played and _he_ smiled weakly, because _he_ was old and had already smiled so much. kenma could recognize happiness, he touched it. kenma was happy, too, when kuroo kisses him, and when kuroo protects him from this world that shoves itself against his shoulders, that knocks him down and steps on him. kenma, he knows happiness. and he knows it's not in this registration sheet, this competition in which he no longer participates. it is no longer his happiness. kenma believes. kenma tries to believe it, because he has trouble remembering. the past, the future, they get dirty, they are sluggish; they fall asleep.

“Kenma…” he whispers. he gets closer. he raises one of his arms, as if to make sure that kenma is still there. that he won't go. you have to hold on to him always, not to let him go. finally, he brings his arm back all over his body. “Please, say something.”

kenma could have heard the trembling of his voice, in kuro’s; this tone which slips against his skin to vibrate, to vibrate with that sorrow that they both feel, understand each other again; resist the wind, this thunder and its lightning, extinguish the fire in their house; they are melted in each other, bonded in each soul, kenma kozume and tetsurou kuroo, their house is supposed to hold more than the others.

kenma could have heard kuroo, shielding himself from the thunder –if he had heard him. _his_ body falls again, and again, into the depths of his drums. the sound of _his_ head slamming against the body of the instrument, and the blood, and the red on the black, the almost invisible red in the darkness in which it melts; the red that kenma sees on _his_ forehead, _his_ temples, _his_ cheeks, _his_ clothes. Death passes, she said hello to him. kenma hears her words.

kenma sees her prints permeate the red of the wood. as his own steps do when they both played in the snow last winter. the last winter. the other winters they arrive, and they flow without you.

“I never thought you would do such a thing to me.”

kenma has spoken, after his words spring into their reality, kuroo wished he had been silent. silence, it would never have been worse than that sentence. that these tears that kenma swallow, he does not sink into the suffering he feels, he maintains the opposite; kenma, he's sunk a lot of times, kuroo thinks, he's learned to hold onto some fragile edges.

kuroo must speak, he knows; he must create a key to open a new door. kenma may never come back, he lost himself easily. but the words die in his throat. they tear each other apart; they no longer exist. only in a very narrow, very thin place, almost invisible even to him. inside. so deep that even his oversized hands cannot touch.

kuroo tries to move his body, he tries to catch up with him, since speaking is something he can no longer do. he always spoke for two, and now he can no longer speak for himself. the world is collapsing. caving in. upside and down. kuroo tries to hold out his hand, a little harder; a little further, to meet the void that kenma left. his words fail to fill him. his movements are too thin, or maybe, it's kenma, kenma still far away, this door he closed again, this key that kuroo found, this key that kuroo handed him, this key that kenma has still thrown. again.

this key that kuroo will seek, even if it is at the bottom of the abyss, at the bottom of the hells. kenma will once again find this hand he knows so well. this outstretched hand, this hand he has taken, this hand he has never let go. that hand, not even his, became another member of his own body.

kenma ignores it. as if he couldn't see it. not feel it. kenma ignores it, kenma is no longer there.

he is in a time when the hand does not yet exist.

his mother asks him why kuroo isn't there, why he doesn't eat this apple pie, why he doesn't speak, why he doesn't touch this letter, why he is going to shut himself up without saying anything. and kenma, he melts into his blankets. it's too hot. it melts elsewhere to no longer exist.

[ _kuro_ , 9:53pm] : kenma, i’m really sorry

[ _kuro_ , 9:53pm] : i didn’t mean to upset you

[ _kuro_ , 9:56pm] : can i come over? i want to talk about it

[ _kenma_ , 9:59pm] : please, don’t.

(don't, don't come, because I'm remembering, recalling, and I don't want you to see me as everything is flowing, everything is escaping, the debris, the world, the memories, the mind, five things I can see, the debris, the world, the memories, the mind, three things I can hear. don’t.)

[ _kuro_ , 9:59pm] : okay, i won’t.

[ _kuro_ , 9:59pm] : i love you okay, i’m sorry. i shouldn’t have registered you, tomorrow i’ll go cancel, say i mistaken or something like that

[ _kuro_ , 10:01pm] : goodnight, i know you don’t want really talk right now. take your time. i’ll be waiting.

(always.)

♪

**_again_ **

kenma is eight years old, and he chose the number _four_ for his jersey. the jersey is not very nice, it is very green, kenma has the impression that people has just been vomited on him. the color looks good on kuro, but kenma remembers that all colors are even more beautiful when kuro brushes against them.

it is his first official match, and kenma is not afraid of many things, maybe only of darkness, thunderstorms and death, and a new and sharp anguish is added to those which torment him already, so kenma's legs are shaking.

the service. kenma does not like to serve.

all eyes are on him. kenma cannot ignore them. kenma cannot turn away from it. to run away. kenma has to face kids of his age who are too big to really be, their eyes shining with determination, almost like kuro's; but kuro, he is special, everything is unique with him. the color green, dull, and gloomy suits him – only him.

kenma hates serving. we look at him, we look at him; he is seen as he has never been seen. it's urgent, it's suffocating. sometimes, kenma's legs shake, and he has to think about the happiness he no longer remembers so as not to collapse. he hates to serve. he is alone. at the back of the field. in his great solitude. he is faced with boys too powerful for their age, with a ferocity that crushes his own indifference. and kenma is alone. kenma does not like to serve. he is shaking. he throws the ball too high, too low; too flabby, too far. fear paralyzes him.

once, one evening late enough for them to exchange some secrets, kenma told kuro. so low that kenma didn't think he could hear him. but kuro heard him, on the lookout for all his sounds, all his precious words. kuro collects them like treasures.

and kuro didn't take his hand, but he did something more exquisite. irreplaceable. he smiles. not mocking. his true smile. his pretty one. and he said three little words; huge words. kenma still remembers it. even after death, kenma will remember. these three words, estimable and delicate, it is the second time that one said to him. twice is not a lot. but said by these two people, it's already great. sufficient.

_I’m here._

so when kenma is at the back of the gymnasium, and all eyes judge him, when he hears all the whispers against his ears, kenma looks at kuro. his back, rather. the way his black hair points to the sky. the tiny hair on the back of his neck. his naked neck he does not cover with his hands. because even if kenma sends the ball more into the net than to the other part of the field, kuro trusts him.

and when we love, and we are loved in return, nothing hurts anymore.

these words are sacred, kenma repeats them in his mind. sometimes, all the time, rather, that is not enough.

shaking legs. the panicked hands. the fearful body. the jerks of his frightened shoulders. the ball crashing against the net. cheers. sighs. the referee's whistle. annoyance. tears that threaten his golden eyes.

and in all this quiet chaos, a smile.

the smile is intended for him. it's amazing, kenma thinks, all this attention. kuro has sweat on his forehead because he plays and he plays with everything he’s got. his ebony wick falls heavily on his right eye.

this time, he only said one word. it’s enough. a word that breaks through his anguish. a word that deconstructs, as if it were only a puzzle, his new fear. his real fear. kuro smiles, and his voice, his voice, kenma remembers, kenma will remember it all his life, kenma will remember it all his death. his voice moved with all his efforts, his voice that trembles with all this love, this passion for playing, this desire to play, even if the world at their side is caving in.

“Again!” kuroo says, sparkling eyes and kenma doesn't know if it's because of the bright lights in the gym, or maybe it's because as soon as you meet someone, you can't be alone anymore. they are linked. kenma is eight years old, and he suspects it. they are building a house. kenma built the doors to escape, and kuroo the windows for him to see more clearly. a little light, kenma. kenma, understand that outside, the world is not as scary as you imagine.

kenma, he doesn't have to be afraid. _I’m here_. kuro picks up the balls that he falls, kuro takes in his hands the points that kenma misses. kenma, he can start over. he can look out the windows at the stars in the sky, without being afraid that the too blue azure will inhale him. again, again, again, the world is not looking at you, you are the only one looking at the world. to stare at him until no more sleep. again.

kenma can start over. again. if he falls, kuro will catch him.

 _again_ , kuro says to him. and he seems almost divine, in this too white, too strong light; in this bravery that kenma always seeks, in the certainty that the stars shine for them. his hazel eyes are even clearer, clearer than stretching water: lighter than his playing fingers. at volley. at the piano. it doesn't matter. kuro still believes, kuro is light. sometimes, kenma has to look away. sometimes, kenma doesn't want it. so kenma looks at kuro, even though it hurts his eyes. kenma gets lost. and kenma is not afraid.

kenma will get lost again.

and again, he will find himself.

again, until he is exhausted in bliss.

♪

**sun, watching over us**

“Kuro.” there is this name which reappears the next day, while kuroo is still sleeping. a hand on his shoulder. it shakes him. body trembling until he wakes up. “Kuro.” eyelids that flutter. “I'm going to open the curtains now.” a harsh light on his asleep face. eyes that close. a sigh. “You sleep too well for someone who was sorry to death ten hours ago.”

electroshock in the body. on the naked torso. “Kenma?” a dreamy voice, still in reveries. a tone that hopes. eyes that open to look at blond hair against rosy cheeks. rolling eyes. “No, it’s only Bokuto and Akaashi making out. Don’t mind us.” silence. “Of course Kenma. You stupid.”

a dreamy voice, more dreams. a tone that hopes. eyes that open to look at blond hair against rosy cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

kenma, he sits on the edge of his bed. expressionless. he's already in uniform. his fine features have long since vanished from dreams. kuroo knows. he knows all the facets of his face. “Do you want me to leave?” he asks, bleak eyes.

“Of course not.” kuro shifts from his too small bed. a place in crumpled sheets. in sheets that kenma has known since the night of time. “Come here.” kenma looks at this empty place, made for his body; left for him, him, only him. his arms which open, his arms in which he is nestled, in the body which has collected his tears, his fears, his nightmares.

“I am supposed to be mad at you.” kenma says. his unruffled gaze in those of kuroo. kuro, he smiles.

“If you were still angry, you wouldn't have come here.” frowning eyebrow. bored look on his pursed lips. kuro, that makes him snicker louder. glower. and there is a silence, in which the wind whispers in the windows that kenma has opened. the smile fades, anxiety drives out silliness. the sunlight opening its luminous eyelids. “I’m sorry, Kenma. I really am.”

kenma looks at him, as if he is discovering him again. he stares inside his hazel eyes. as if he was trying to read a heart he already knows. “Can you forgive me?” kuro whispers, as if it was a secret. words that only they, kenma kozume and tetsurou kuroo, can hear. the sun, even he, must remain outside these sacred words. pardons that two souls agree to. new promises that bind them.

again.

kenma nods, slowly. time is ticking again, when kuroo smiles: a beam that soothes his shoulders already too hard, his heart already damaged. “Okay.” kenma says. there are hands that are found. they slip over the soft white sheet, and they intertwine as they have learned to do.

kuro brings them to his lips, and he kisses them. “I love you.”

kuro puts the word on him. kenma welcomes it, an invisible caress that lands on his lips, a kiss brushing his heart. and kenma takes it, in his little hands with too short nails. kenma collected it, and kenma plants it deep inside him, and he nourishes this word with memories, first times, and promises; kenma roots it deep, the farthest place hos frail hands can find, the most precious place kenma can remember. and kenma keeps it closest to his soul.

kenma takes off his jacket. he is lying down. his head on the pillow smelling of kuro. his blond hair is falling, slipping through kuroo's fingers. their noses touch. they don't have the strength to kiss, but they think about it. strongly. they hear it, in their eyes.

“Kuro.” kenma murmurs.

“Hm.”

“I’m weak.” kenma knows this, because last night, when he had the strength to get up, remembering to do it, again, kenma went to that door, a few steps from the piano, a few steps from the blood that sunk. kenma only has to look at that door, kenma imagined going inside, but there was an invisible force pushing him outside. cowardice, his grandfather called it. but he was smiling, old and wrinkled, with kindness: he was smiling to chase away what kenma did not know how to do. it's frustrating, wanting something you can’t do.

“I didn’t know,” kenma whispers. “how weak I was.” his hot breath caresses kuro's black lock. kuro, he looks at him, eyes glassy. he squeezes his hand a little harder. kuro is silent. silence does not suit him well. kuro looks at him, and kenma waits; he awaits the end of the world, the end of quell, the beginning of bravery.

“I think that’s okay.” kuro says. he tries to smile. the smile is trembling. but his hazel eyes shine. kenma, he wanted him to share some of his own courage. because kuro is the one who always seemed invisible. maybe kenma is too in love not to see the tears that kuro is fighting back, that anguish that kuro fights every second of his existence. kenma adulates him. as soon as kuroo extended his reddened hand. as soon as kenma saw how tight kuro hold his ball against his chest. kenma, he loved him, even when he didn’t know what love was. “Wasn’t the reason you started playing?”

it is true. this is one of the things kenma forgot. the best things die first. as a law of the universe.

and then, kuro laughs. softly and slowly; his bare chest rises, rises, breathes this love. kenma recovers his sighs. kuro laughs, with an almost infinite tenderness, under the sun which watches for them, which covers them, these lovers. his laugh, light, agile and graceful, evaporates in the silence of this new day. another day for them, these lovers. to live their love to which they have become accustomed. this love that never fades. kuro kisses his eyelids, and kenma takes his kisses. slowly, adoringly, volatile kisses on his face, which Kenma is careful to remember. because one day, if the universe turns against them, they could disappear. and kenma, he must remember.

even after his death, kenma will remember.

they make love, afterwards.

it is not the first time, and it is perhaps the last, since life is surprising. so kenma took the time to kiss kuro, his kisses are numbered, his kisses are not immortal. even if for a few moments, even if for a lifetime, it seemed their love was.

this time, kenma made love to kuro. this is rare, because kenma is often too lazy to take him. to move his thighs. yet, kenma was suffering, kenma was suffering, every time he heard his smooth laugh. kenma was in pain from loving too much. and kenma does not know how to say it. it's stuck somewhere, the place where he keeps all the _I love you_ that kuro whispers to him. kenma only knows how to show it. maybe that's why, who knows, kenma started playing when he was three-year-old, and less; when, already, his words were deep, deep somewhere he couldn’t go.

this time, kenma was playing with kuro's skin. under his fingers, thousands of sensitive touches. kenma was playing. he slipped his hands, too thin, with bitten nails, his fingers too short; he was playing a score that the tired sun whispered to him. kenma played a sound with a thousand colors, of shards that caress kuro, a brilliance made for him; a poetry of his own life.

kenma has created his own tempo, his own chords. under his eyelids, every time kenma closed his eyes, a note more intense than others, a sound higher than another, kenma saw, kenma saw as clearly as he saw kuro and his red lips, his neck scarred, his cheeks too red, kenma saw a score he could read. a score he could play. music, unknow to his ears, because with kuro, everything is usually new: this sound, he heard it, without scratches, without cracks, without breaks.

kuro has his face on his shoulder. hand around his waist. sweaty, hot, feverish of sensuality. kenma is breathing hard, as if he doesn't know how to do it anymore. there are the tips of wet kuro black hair. they touch his skin; they remind them of sweet music. they're late for school. kenma catches his breath. he flaps his eyes. thousands of blinks; thousands of images. a game. a keyboard. black, white. sound.

“I’ll do it,” kenma says. “I’ll play again.”

he feels the kuro breath cut, before resuming his caresses against his skin again. on his waist, the hand begins to brush him. then, gently, slowly, kuro's fingers, sticky, with damp imprints, move. they strum against his skin; they pat, as light as a life, his waist, sometimes to the outside of his thigh; kuro dances, invents soundless music, plays love on his body.

sometimes, when he tries to be too fast, with his fingers calloused, his knuckles broken, by all the blocks that kuro has made, his hands deformed by love, sometimes; his slightly long nails are imprinted on his skin. his ridged nails. his massive hands, his muscular hands.

but that’s okay. kuro is playing for him, and kenma is listening.

listen, the sound of his skin against his, the shy music, the music that the sun on their face lets exist. the world, outside, is waking up. other sounds through their ears.

and kenma, he only listens to kuro.

♪

**the opposite of silence**

kenma opened the door again. he had never really thrown the key away.

inside, there are thousands of dusts. kuro laughs, he laughs at his mess. he calls lev, yamamoto, kai, and yaku, so they can tidy up with them. they grumble, a lot, but they don't ask about broken trophies, the scratch in an old photo, torn photo, and they don't ask to kenma to play for them. they don't touch the piano, either, because kenma looks at it with a strange gleam in his eyes, a peculiar possessiveness, as if it was a treasure, a rarity too precious to be touched.

when kuro talks about the contest, they say that they have already booked the date, and that they will come, they will come, always, even if the world falls apart, they will come. and kenma believes them.

now, when the boys left, there is only silence, a reunion between memories, there is only one hand holding his. and kuro's caramel eyes say:

“Play for me.” kuro says, without shame, without smiling, with a seriousness that suits his face.

kuro says, until there is no silence anymore.

the team is really supportive of music they don't even know. during training, they all let kuro manage the playlist. between the throws of the balls, the squeaky parquet, there is Chopin, played in boucle, until madness: until kenma know the notes, the tempo, the scores in his eardrums, until kenma can only think of Chopin, of sounds. until kenma can see the colors under his eyelids. sometimes, when he passes, his fingers linger on the ball and kenma knows: they want to dance. they want to dance on black and white.

 _it’s coming back_ , kenma thinks. this desire to play until his fingers bleed.

in the metro, kenma spends half of the trip playing on his console, and the other half playing on kuro's arm. kuro rolls up his sleeves, his arms with thin brown hairs, and kenma strokes them, with his pianist fingers, with his hands that kenma is trying to assume.

it's difficult, when he sees April 31 circled in red on the calendar in his fridge. almost seven months to catch up with almost ten years: nine year of absence, nine year of nothingness. _impossible_ , kenma said. _i’m making a fool of myself_. and kuro smirked. _time does not exist for prodigies_ , kuro answered. kenma just frowned his eyebrows. _idiot,_ kenma thinks.

his heart begins to hope again.

kenma chose as an interpretation Chopin, Etude, Op.25, No.5 (Wrong Note).

when kuro asked him why, he just replied that the piece was made of notes incompatible with harmony, impossible to unite. kenma thinks that is not true.

and this idea of disagreement, of distress, fascinates him.

kenma will flow with the piece, kenma knows that. drowning himself with. no matter what kuro says.

kenma begins to learn the score, every time his eyes open, under his eyelids, there is this sheet that never leaves him. it's like a new member of his body.

in class, over his notebooks, behind him pencil case which hides his trumpery, kenma stares at the score, learns the many symbols that music shows him. sometimes, kenma gets lost in the notes. his feet hit the floor, under the table, in a rhythm he tries to hide. his fingers are tapping on his desk. sometimes, he gets lost in the silent sounds, in the music that exists only in his mind.

when the professor is about to pass near him, walks around the rows, behind him, yamamoto bangs hard against one of the legs of his chair. sometimes, all the time, kenma is startled, and the notes are cut off by this forgotten reality. this world that reappears before his eyes.

the professor looks at him strangely, his brow furrowed, him and yamamoto, his arms crossed over his chest, the tie undone; the professor watches without saying anything, and kenma tries not to think about the eyes on his face, the teasing his classmates can whisper. only of sound he plays.

“Kuro.” eyes on him. “Can you help me to dye my hair?” kenma asks, slow and indifferent, in the supermarket aisle.

“Do you _want_ to dye your hair again?” kuro demands, doubting about between two popsicles in his hands. _strawberry or chocolate?_ kuro inquires, fast and quick, between the end of his lips, before kenma opens his mouth. _chocolate_ , kenma said. then:

“I don’t really want to,” kenma takes some vanilla ice cream from the freezer and sighs. _oh, vanilla sounds good too,_ kuro whispers. “But I kinda have to.”

kuroo frowns. he puts down the strawberry, takes the vanilla instead, and watches in his two hands, the duel of vanilla and chocolate clash before his eyes. “If you don’t want, then don’t do it.”

kenma rolls up his nose. “Thanks, you genius.” _yeah, definitely chocolate_ , kuro makes up his mind, nodding his head. kenma looks at him, jaded by a scene he knows way too well. that's why, perhaps, he doesn't roll his eyes.

“But, hey, if you don’t have a choice.” kuro said, putting the vanilla popsicle back to the freezer. “But, hey, why don’t you have a choice? Are you in an existential crisis I’m not aware of? And I already told you to stop reading horoscopes. Just because Chibi-chan reads them to increase his chances with his setter doesn't mean it works. Moons in Aquarius, or whatever, that's bullshit.”

“Can you stop being a Scorpio, for like, two seconds of your existence?”

“Wow. Mean. I love my sign even if I have no clue of what it means.”

kenma is about to answer, but kuro gently runs his hand through his blonde hair. he wraps locks around his fingers. “So you won't be a little blondie anymore, huh?” he whispers to himself, to his memories, with smiling eyes.

“Things like that have a bad reputation in contests.” kenma only says. kuro's fingers sliding away from his body, kenma slips into the other aisles, the one of hair care. behind him, kuro follows.

“Will you cut your hair too?”

“If I do, I would just freak out.”

“I know,” kuro smiles. “That’s okay, though.”

kenma looks at the dozens of hair colors on the shelf. he takes one, the darker, the blackest. that of its natural color, the same strands of its ebony roots. “Oh, my. Am I going to see my original Kenma again?” kuro smirks.

“Gross.”

they go to the cash register. in his hands, kenma feels the coldness of his ice cream, almost already melting. “A Pisces’s reaction, huh.” kuro winks at him. “I see.”

kenma looks at him, wry. he doesn't blink. “I’m Libra.”

“No, you are Japanese.”

“I’m doing my hair by myself.”

kuro can no longer be embedded in kenma's music room until his caresses on the keyboard put him to sleep. _it’s okay_ , kuro said, _I understand_. kuro understood, and kuro wanted it. walk through the door with the notes dancing, watch kenma play, play like kuro had never seen him before, until his eyes were satisfied and closed by themselves.

kenma no longer plays by his side, because he has a teacher for that now. kenma says it's common, and necessary, that he can never do anything on his own. kuro thinks that's not true, because he saw how his slender fingers moved across the keyboard, as fast as a breeze, as light as a feather; his fingers which do not tremble, his fingers which resist, kenma which does not darken, when he plays, when he feels that the sound slips through his fingers: kenma plays, kenma still plays, kenma searches for some fragments of courage that he manages to find.

hiroko, it’s the name of the teacher. a woman with long black hair, thick eyelashes and very blue eyes. it is his aunt, an aunt that kuro had never seen. kenma said she travels a lot, because she is a pianist; kenma didn't say, she's a pianist _too_ , because the word didn't come out, but it was implied. feeling in his voice. she just had a child, so she doesn't travel anymore. she's quite young, but maybe it's her constant smile and good humor that brightens her face a little more. she is one of her grandfather's daughters, and it was she who discovered kenma's little fingers on the keyboard, when he was three years old and a little less, big golden eyes that looked everywhere around him. she is the one who first believed in him.

kenma was small, but he remembers. he remembers as if he had lived it yesterday. remember, he doesn't know if it's really a gift from the gods. the way her azure eyes widened, when kenma played after her, repeated the sound she had just made up. the way kenma was smiling, too. kenma, in front of her half-open mouth, in front of her immense surprise, her question _how can you play the piano, kenma_ , and kenma, it seemed obvious to him, at the rip of three years old. maybe it's because kenma spent all his days napping under his grandfather's too big piano, listening to him, listening to him play, until his body could no longer take it. being able to play, for kenma, it was evident. the piano has been part of his life from the moment he uttered his first cry. the lullabies his parents whispered to him, the melodies his grandfather was humming. maybe he had been a pianist in his other life. and kenma, two and a half years old, he thinks there is no reason for him not to play. his fingers attracted to the keys, as if they belonged here.

hiroko, she rushed over to her father, almost on her head bowing, to teach him to kenma too. _he is a genius_ , she said. and his father, kenma's grandfather, was the second person to believe in him.

then, everything quickly happened. learning, fast and long, sometimes, kenma missed the school to play, the competitions and the trophies, the insults, too, because kenma was faithful to the score, as if the score was only a possible truth; _robot_ , we called him, _cyborg_ , sometimes. kenma remembers it. but his grandfather smiled when he played, so kenma put up with a few insults that meant nothing. kenma, he was just playing, to make his grandfather smile, even if he started to lose his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, although sometimes, he would be away for a month, a few weeks, kenma ignoring exactly why, his mother crying, crying hard; and hiroko, smoking more, smoking until her lungs didn’t take it anymore. when his grandfather left for some days, long weeks, hiroko was taking over his teaching. they called though the phone, sometimes; kenma was playing to him, to a face he couldn’t see anymore, but kenma knew: in his golden eyes, his wrinkled eyes, his sick eyes, there were hundreds of smiles.

“So, your mom told me you are taking part of Maihou Competition?” hiroko smiles. she is leaning on the windowsill, a lit cigarette between her long white fingers, the absence of a ring on her ring finger; the marriage, she has thrown away. kenma knows that, because she made a score out of it.

“I don’t think I’ll make it, though.” with the tips of his fingerprints, kenma slides his fingers over the black wood of the piano. hiroko, she laughs. light, volatile, feminine and elegant. kenma hadn't heard it for a long time.

“Well, your mother didn’t think she would have a kid hooked on the piano, but here we are.” with one of her fingers, she throws the ashes on the ground, over the window. her eyes, large and round, are lost in space, the spots of redness at the corners of her pink lips, vibrating a bit on her pearly skin. “And yet… She saved like crazy, she worked day and night, and she bought you a _Steinway & Sons._ She didn't miss any of your competitions, she secretly recorded all your performances. And she didn’t think…” she breathes. _she didn't think about it, because she always hated the piano a little, this secret garden reserved for our father, and for me. she never understood, she never played, she always hated_.

her breathes says.

kenma, he lowers his head. he looks at the pedals under his feet, he tries to chase away the blush that rises on his cheekbones. “You still are looking down, hm? It doesn’t suit you.”

silence. throbbing eyelashes against bluish circles. “I’m not hooked on piano, anyways.” _anymore._

there's a cold hand running under his chin, brushing his black hair, and lifting his face. her eyes are very blue, hiroko’s eyes. the smell of cold tobacco still against her fingerprints. the grotesque odor, finely strong, tickles his nostrils. hiroko, she smiles. she has wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, mascara weighing down on her eyelashes, her ebony hair, too, caressing her temples. “You can say this bullshit to your lovey-dovey, but not to me.” she tightens her grip a little, smiles mischievously. she has the same teases as her father. the stars he had. “I hope you're protecting yourself, by the way.”

“Oh my God.” kenma growls, black eyes, the tip of his nose red, his eyes receding. with a quick gesture, he pushes her hand away. and, hiroko, she just laughs.

she laughs loudly. her neck back, her torso heaving, her body gripped by thousands of shivers of happiness. she laughs, her hands on her hips, she laughs, colorful and sonorous, her laughter is lost in the silence of the neighborhood, in the songs of the birds, in the leaves beginning to fall. she laughs, between these four walls, in this room which has resuscitated.

this room, welcoming life again.

during the match to go to the nationals, kenma is injured.

it was only a too strong kill he took in the face. now, kenma has bandages around his fingers and his fingers were spared. but there is blood running down one of his temples, getting stuck in the corners of his eyelids and a few drops on his eyelashes. they pass on his face disinfectant on a piece of cotton. it stings, and kenma grits his teeth.

“They are fucking assholes, that’s what they are.” yamamoto spits, between his teeth. he sends a thousand glares, a thousand daggers in his eyes, at nohebi. them, they smile, too lightly for the rest of the world to see them. but nekoma, they don't miss them anymore.

“Calm down,” kai whispers to his side. “Kenma will be fine, okay?”

“But he can’t play the match anymore.” yaku concludes. because kenma tries to keep his eyes open, but his eyelids flutter like butterflies trying to fly away. and kuroo, he looks at him. worried. he might have been angry, for a second, on the verge of hitting daishou if yaku hadn't held him back, but now he sees the blood on kenma's face, his mud head, a mirror that shatters, and kuroo is worried, as if kenma has just became a thousand crystalline shards.

“Is Kenma-san dying?” yaku hits lev hard, strongly on his middle back with his feet, enough to make the green eyes close in passive pain. _ouch_ , it resonates, in the murmurs of the public, in the heat of the gym. inuoka tries to hide his laughter behind his hands.

“Kenma,” nekomata sings, lacking of any worriedness. a golden look, tired and weak, on his wrinkled smile. “Get some rest. We will manage.”

“Okay,” kenma says low and head down. “Sorry.” kenma, he feels a little guilty. the dirty trick of daishou was predictable, and easy to avoid. but kenma plays, in recent months, day and night, sometimes; he falls asleep in class, and fukunaga has to fly a ball of paper in his face so that his forehead does not hit his desk. sometimes, playing on kuro's arm, kuro who smiles, tenderly this time, softness in his hazel eyes that kenma is too sleepy to see, kenma's fingers stop in dreams, and his head slips on his shoulder, the rails vibrating under his feet, like a regular and familiar tempo. the days are too short, so kenma still plays at night. when kuroo is working on his chemistry, on his formulas that are too long to remember, kuroo hears: it's a lullaby, almost; this is what kuroo has always wanted, to hear kenma, to hear his sighs that do not come out of his thin lips, to hear kenma, to play, in his own reality; hearing kenma, this happiness that he never says, his sighs of joy that kenma represses. when kuroo puts his two pillows against his ears, his pillows with slender fabrics, and kuroo still hears, the notes which dance around his body, the music which resonates in the silence of a night, in the immortality of its darkness, kenma's music accompanies him on this journey that kuroo has difficulty in taking.

 _I’m here,_ his sound says.

the referee whistles, the break ends. the team pats his back, yamamoto a little too hard, as if trying to transmit his strength to him through this contact. kenma whispers _good luck_ almost too faint to be heard, but she is listened like a treasure, and the team in the white and red jersey says _leave it to us_ with reassuring smiles.

 _I do,_ kenma thinks.

putting down his gourd, before going to play again, kuroo runs his hand furtively through his black hair. he does not look at him, his body is lowered, the material of the drink hits the floor, and kenma, it may take all the strength he has left, to hold back kuro. he speaks.

“Kuro.” the players replace themselves, some a little more slowly than others, to break the dynamic of game, and the whole world does not suspect it, but nekoma knows. kuroo, he turns around and plants his caramel eyes in his. it does something to his chest. a heat that has become invincible. kenma, he still has blood on three of those black eyelashes, a bandage on his temple, eyes clouding, and kuroo may have never seen him so tired, even when kenma was getting sick after elementary and middle school matches, and that he could only sleep, sleep, exhausted from a sport he did not like. kuro has never seen kenma so overwhelmed with fatigue, but there is something sparkling behind his feline pupils, a glow weak from exhaustion and powerful by the ambition kenma keeps to himself. kuroo, he has never seen kenma as beautiful as he is today. even if these dark circles are immense, even if the underside of his eyes are bluer than the summer sky, even if his skin only fades, with feebleness and passion. since he's been playing, he's been playing as if tomorrow doesn't exist.

“I really want to go to Nationals.”

these black locks are taken by the sweat on his cheeks, his long hair stuck against his neck. his gaze is fierce, kenma does not blink, even if sleep attracts him with its too soft hands. kenma looks at kuroo, looks at him with a thousand words in his eyes, a language that belongs to them, a silence that they have built and that they speak. and kuroo smiles.

kenma is too indolent to want, and when he finally does, kenma is too shy to tell. and kuro smiles.

they win.

“Kuro.” kenma tries. whispers, soft, low. the room window is not closed properly and a snowflake enters slowly, as fragile as a breeze. it crashes on the parquet. it melts, it melts, under this heat, under all this life. kenma is the only one to see it, flying, dancing, for as long as it can; strongly as it can. kuro, his back against the shelves, his eyelids are closed, and his breath is steady. sleep breathing. kuro smells of dreams, those of a mild winter.

the stars, already up, still awake, illuminate the lightless room. kenma likes to play in the dark. it prevents him from seeing. it forces him to listen. and kuro, for kuro, in his sweet darkness, everything becomes a lullaby.

kuroo, he sleeps, always, he sleeps peacefully, hearing kenma, knowing that kenma is by his side. kenma looks at him, this monotony on his tired face, this slowness of a lifetime. kenma, he saw his black eyelashes shaking from sleep, and he told him, he told kuro, go to sleep, go lie down on his bed, somewhere else, not on the cold floor, hardwood, without carpet. but kuro, he stayed, he stayed like he only knows to do that.

and kenma, he welcomed him, with his playing, a little slower, a little softer, tender, fragile; light enough to take off, flying, to waltz in the air, invisible love, dancing to pluck on kuro's eyelids.

sometimes, there are days, there are night, and kenma goes deaf to the sounds.

sometimes, the piano becomes an unfathomable abyss, even more infinite than a summer sky, even more frightening than Death. the piano intimidates him. the keyboard takes him high, and he's brave enough to touch these notes, these keys, the piano threatens to collapse. the Universe is getting closer, each time his fingers are about to touch them; closer, stronger, against his too frail body, too small for a setter, too tiny for a pianist.

sounds, sounds, what sounds? they are sucked up by the precipices. kenma knows he doesn't deserve to hear them. he has memories, and he has this guilt, that of not having catching him in the arms of a child of seven years. not having prevented death. kenma, he knows, deep down, he hopes, he wants to play, but he knows; he does not deserve to play, he does not deserve that the piano hear him, that the piano answer him.

prisoner at the bottom of the too dark sea, alone, alone, drowned by resentment, his nature destroyed, kenma stands, at this moment, broken, speechless to call for help, this deep and deserved panic of his whole being.

“Your imagery is what’s important. How do you want to play this piece? Who do you want to play it for?”

hiroko takes a sip of her tea, and kenma, he looks at her as if she came from another universe. he doesn’t blink. “I intend to play the score just as it is, like I always have. That's all.”

she rolls her eyes hard enough to break them. she sighs, a mixture of boredom and gentle mockery. “Oh, my. Are you going to give us your bland and monotonous playing again?”

he frowns. protests. “He taught us to play by following the score with precision. Not my fault if you became the rebellious child.” she laughs, her eyes close for a few seconds under her smile, and in her hands, she has to squeeze her cup a little harder. kenma, he is used to win this way. and he remembers, when nobody weren't complaining too much about his robotic game, the trophies in his juvenile hands.

“It’s different, now.” it's different now, because time has passed, and some things are gone. kenma tries to ignore it, to deny it, but there is always this winter season which begins again, which passes again, a season a little stronger than the last ones, with his face that grows, the world unfreezing. “You lost a bit of technique. Even if the score you chose isn't that complicated, you have to bet on something else. Shining, even if you make mistakes.”

she smiled, her wise smile, as if she had seen it all, from the height of her thirty-three years. she has no wrinkles on her face yet, nor her hands are crunchy, she is still athletic, and she looks at kenma as if she already knows. the following. the future that kenma is afraid of.

kenma whispers things on the tip of his lips, laments about this sentimental playing, this colorful playing he hasn't played for a long time, that he has stopped playing, because feelings are deadly. the partitions, they remain. they don't change. the notes remain the same, on the paper that is too white, their darkness is still as strong, they are immortal. the scores, they live until infinite.

“That’s okay, Ken-chan,” she says. _ah_ , it's the return of the nickname he loves, and he hates, he still doesn't know how it's possible, to despise something by loving it again. she approaches, puts back a black lock which falls in front of his eyes. she puts it back behind his ear. when she sees his piercing on the helix, she smiles a little harder. she speaks. “Don’t be afraid. Music is freedom embodied.”

if she's extremely free, that would explain why she ran away from him.

the day before the contest, kenma thinks of fleeing. to go down by his window, to leave, to leave where he knows nothing, where nothing could know him back, to leave and to not return.

instead, kenma calls kuro.

and kuro comes, a t-shirt with chemical symbols spelling out the word _fuck_ , and kenma would have thought it’s funny, if he wasn't to the point of wanting to melt, blend in with all the decor possible so that no one else could find him.

“I don’t know if I can,” kenma whispers between kuro and the yellowish full moon visible in the evaporating gray clouds. kuro, he's playing with his black hair. his bony fingers are long enough for him to wrap a few strands all around. in the crook of his neck, kenma can feel his pulse. soft and slow. it takes the time to exist. it's reassuring, for kenma, to know that under his hands, under his fingers, kuro's chest vibrates, with all his breaths he can take. because the universe has decided and kuro, he is still alive.

and clock hands will start to move again, time will resume itself, and kenma is afraid.

kuro, he said nothing. he remains silent about words he already knew. kuro, he talks a lot, because he sees a lot of things. kuro saw kenma's shoulders drop, even more, lower, towards the impossible of this anguish, and kuro, he waited. kuro took his hand, sometimes, he squeezed it in his, and he didn't say anything. he waited. kenma.

“I really want to see you in suit.” kuro only answers. murmurs.

really, kuro, he likes to say only in order to talk, sometimes; he likes to say things without saying them, it is a talent that he has. kuro is good with words, he always has been. _I really want to see you play._ and. _it doesn't matter if you can play or not, the important thing is that you will. we are all afraid. even me. always. we live with it, with this fear, we move forward. you have to move forward._

kuro speaks.

kuro kisses his eyelids, heavy, heavy, flushed with anguish, because kenma couldn't help but scratch them, do something with his shaking hands. and kenma did not remember having closed them. kuro speaks. he places a few volatile kisses on it, kenma feels his thin smile against his skin, whispered and suave voice brushing against him. and kuro speaks. his kisses fly away, they are too light, the moon takes them away. then; kuro does it again. and kuro speaks. his kisses are a little more serious, his caresses are more loving, they lie down on the part of his body.

and stay.

kuro speaks.

 _you have to play. as much as you have the chance_ _. I play with everything I’ve got. as long as there are people watching you, listening to you, you have to play._

♪

**_one lie_ **

****

tetsurou kuroo lied.

kuroo is eight years old, and kuroo lied.

and tetsurou kuroo, ten years later, 6’1.5” of smirks and eighteen years of existence, kuroo still lies –again, and again.

when asked how he met kenma, kuroo talks about abandoned land, burnt grass, dirty canals. with a torn net, and a ball against his hip. it's a lie, a tiny one, he crosses his lips, this falsehood, he never leaves them. unveiled, this lie won’t change a thing, kuroo knows; already, simply by existing, this lie has shaken their lives. for kuroo, there is nothing to deviate from. kuroo will not change this fate he invented, for nothing in the world, he will transform theirs.

tetsurou kuroo met kenma kozume without him knowing it. kuroo, maybe he will never say, he will keep it to himself, he will take care of it, this lie, this detail of their love, of their fate that crossed paths; he will cherish it, in his heart, the place which is already its home.

his mother reports to the kozume the same day they move in the neighborhoods in tokyo. she greets them, with the polite smile that kuroo has never been able to learn, kuroo is at her side, behind her, a piece of cloth from her pants in his little hand, because kuroo is only eight years old, and it is still an early time, it is too soon to overcome his shyness.

the kozume welcome them, they drink tea in the living room, kuroo does not touch anything, he wants to go outside, play, find his ball, he stamps his foot a little, because he has a great passion, kuroo, and he must keep it. never again, never let it die. his mother sees it, his ardor quivering his foot, and she smiles, she talks about her impatient kid, her hyperactive kid. she talks a lot, her mother, she talks, she just got divorced, she has to talk. replace this strange void in her, in everything. and kenma's mother, she talks a lot too, because she has just lost her father, she mourns, grief in her blue eyes, in her red eyes, she talks a lot. she talks about her only son, her little love, kenma, kenma, the name rings softly in his ears, kuroo’s, kenma, the unsociable child, he does not go out, he only plays, and he is not there, he plays at my sister's house, practicing, but come, come to his final, it's Saturday, come. meet him, tetsurou-kun. she said.

that day, that Saturday, a winter afternoon, the wind froze his cheeks, and in this arranged opera, it's cold, they put everything in place, the grand piano on the platform, they have be careful not to forget the music stand, but they forgot the heater, so kuroo hides the tip of his nose in his red scarf, and he waits. this Saturday, he waits, this moment, this moment that he will never forget, even buried. he doesn't know it yet.

he sees a little boy with ebony hair coming onto the stage, he looks tiny, in all this emptiness, in all this space. there is only one piano, immense, immense, kuroo, he sees that it shines. and the piano is huge, and the boy is so small, it could suck it up, kuroo thinks. his mother, at his side, she says _, it's him, tetsu, it's him, kenma._ oh; kenma. kuroo had almost forgotten him. after, eight-year-old kuroo, he doesn't know it yet, but after, in the future he isn’t aware of, yet, he'll never forget him again.

kenma, he bends over, he greets them, his hair long for a boy, kuroo thinks, leave his frail shoulders and falls on his cheeks, when he greets them. he doesn't look at them. kuroo doesn't see the color of his eyes, but he knows, kuroo, that kenma, he's somewhere else, he's somewhere, but not on this stage with the lights too bright, the piano too big. his steps, they are heavy, kenma is tiny, but he walks, he rather crawls, at the end of his feet, he forces himself to go, as if he does not want to be here, as if it were hard, for him, to walk to the too classy piano. his body seems to weigh in tones.

there is a tension which rises in the room, murmurs all around him, bodies wriggling in their armchairs, eyes which shine with admiration, for this kid with the too long hair, the stiff locks, with his crumpled black pants. kuroo does not understand, he is eight years old, and he does not know anything for the piano, in the world of music he doesn’t belong. he only knows volleyball, and chemistry, his grandmother was a volleyball player and his father is a university professor, they taught him a lot, for his young age. but kuroo, he doesn't understand, he knows a lot of things yet, he's in the best of his class, marks of _96_ in red on his controls, on his sheets that his mother hangs on the fridge, but he doesn't understand.

as the boy settles on the leather armchair, his feet floating in the air, kenma, his name, kenma, kuroo grabs his mother's sleeve, and he asks, he says _why ken-chan is being greeted as if he was a musician, isn't that just a competition?_ and his mother laughs, lightly, not too loudly, you mustn't make any noise, kenma unbuttoned his black jacket, he is about to play; no noise in this silent chaos. and she says that kenma is a musician, he is the youngest in its history to have won this competition, maihou competition, and that he will be going abroad soon to reveal his genius to the whole world. because kenma, kuroo, he's a little prodigy; it's been four years, he wins everything, the invincible musician, he who is never wrong, his playing never disturbed, his playing, reflection of the scores. kenma has been in newspapers, people are talking about him like the one who will soon be in classical music history.

kuroo, he doesn't know it, but at this moment, in this world he didn't belong to, he has stars in his hazel eyes. and he's just waiting for him, kuroo, he's waiting for kenma as if he were made to wait for him. kuroo clings to the seat in front of him, his scarf falls a little, the red brushes the ground, but kuroo, he waits, he cannot contain himself, he wants to see, this kenma kozume, this musician at seven-year-old. him, kuroo, he's eight years old, it's only a year apart, it's not much; but he, kuroo, he's not a player yet. he plays, like kenma, perhaps with this same ferocity, but kenma is a musician, and kuroo is not a player. _how._ he wants to know.

so kuroo waits. he put his feet on the chair, so he could lean a little further, be a little closer to that pale skinned boy. and his mother scolds him, tells him to stand up straight, but kuroo doesn’t listen – no more. kuroo is just waiting, as if he could only remain, fascinated, under the fingertips of this kenma kozume.

tetsurou kuroo waits for a sound, a note, a playing, a music, and none of the quarters arrive. kuroo hopes, in vain. the boy, he just burst into tears. he brought his hands closer to the keyboard, a few yards from touching them, but he withdrew his hand to take his head in his face, to cry, to cry, in front of this too large piano, the piano breathing kind of sorrow now, kuroo thinks.

the whispers get louder, kenma has to hear them, because he is covering his ears, to disappear, maybe, and he cries, sobs that the whole world could hear, whispers on his wet lips, his nose flowing over his costume, and the musician, in the eyes of all, is no more. maybe, even for himself, even for kenma kozume, he is no longer one. since he's just crying, asking for help, and–

leaving. and he's not coming back, kenma kozume. he does not play. not again, no more.

it's cruel, because tetsurou kuroo finds himself waiting, not letting go, this facet that he has not seen, this musician that he has not yet heard before his eyes. and kuroo waits, waits, with the patience his grandmother taught him, this wisdom to curl the flowers only when they are ready to be held, in soft hands, with tender palms, they must not be broken, tetsurou. wait for them, you will see, they will hatch before your gentle eyes, take care of them with love, and to love is to be patient, so be it, sweetheart. they will give it back to you, these pretty flowers.

tetsurou kuroo is waiting and kenma kozume is a musician.

♪

**playing for you**

kenma thinks the opera hasn't changed. the walls are still as old, the armchairs still creak, and the jury is still the same. _5_ , is his entry number. kuro, he laughed, he said _hey, this is your jersey number_ _so that will bring you luck_. after, kuro just kissed his forehead, and he whispered an _it’s gonna be okay_ kenma needed to hear.

lev, yaku, kai and yamamoto came, as they promised, as they swore. akane is also there, she has eyes in the stars and she always calls kenma _sensei_ , with a little more force, this time, in the corridors of this recognized competition. the other guys on the team are there, too, because they heard lev talk about kenma and his piano fingers, and the contest _kenma-san is going to win, you'll see_. so fukunaga, inuaka and shibayama came, too, even though they didn't promise anything. and they are there, all. for a second, with the blink of a smile, kenma believes, he thinks they will all pass together. they will all play together, on the stage too big, and the piano too luxurious. all their fingers on the keyboard, with him.

hiroko arrives, and she tells him that it's time, that he has to go backstage, get ready to play. she looks at him, those clearer blue eyes, she knows. kenma waves, he trembles, he sweats, kenma leaves. kenma holds back kuro's big smile, he must be happy, he smiles without mockery, with pride and joy. kuro must be.

in the corridors, he meets almost familiar heads. aged, grown features. kenma has trouble recognizing them all. kenma is in a world that has slipped from his fingers, he must reprove it, this musical, dancing world. kenma knows that two people he is used to do all the competitions with, two people whose names kenma can't remember, they were the ones who dominated the competitions after kenma left. kenma feels a thousand looks on his neck, and he hears the rumors, all he does is know these noises of lies, this wickedness slipping of tongues out. it's almost complicated to cross these corridors, to endure these curious looks, these confused murmurs.

kenma wants to leave _run away_ but he knows, somewhere, close, always, kuro is waiting for him.

“I am so stressed. I want to go to the bathroom again.”

“You are not the one playing on stage, Lev,” yaku sights. “Relax.” lev, in his seat, he just moves, moves, again. he groans, he complains, he just talks, he doesn't let go. in his hands, yaku, he has retrieved a card at the entrance and he goes through the list of participants and the chosen scores.

“I feel I am telepathically linked to Kenma-san, that’s why.” lev says, bringing his fingernails to his mouth to bite them. yaku rolls up his eyes, _oh my_ whispering at the end of his lips.

“Oi.” kuroo calls. frowning. eyes darker. “Don’t get your hopes up, you Scorpio shit.”

“Aren’t you Scorpio too, Kuroo-san?” akane whispers, next to him, her head tilted to the side, curiosity making her body moves. she can hear her brother telling her not to try to argue with kuroo, _he has a logic that is beyond all intelligence._

“What is supposed to mean!?” kuroo rattles, the voice rising in the bass, his annoyance deep in his throat. _nothing_ , the yamamoto rush to answer, their hands in the air, too innocent smile on their faces.

“Won’t you guys behave?” yaku complains, not taking his eyes off the names of the participants. sometimes, lev leans over his shoulder, and he says, _oh, she's pretty, this one_ , but yaku gives him a glare, picky enough that lev sinks into his seat, silent. “Kai, tell them.”

“Already tired to play the mommy, _Morisuke_?” kuroo smirks. and yaku plants his brown eyes in his, expressionless, weary.

“I swear it on the gods, kuroo, when you leave the room you won't be able to have children anymore.”

yamamoto bursts out laughing, in this almost silent room, and inuaka has to bite the inside of his cheeks so as not to laugh too loudly, too. there are several looks at this group of nine loud-voiced, loving bickering teens. “People are watching us.” kai sings, smiling to ears, lips in a thin line, eyes close of softness.

and maybe it's because the hall lights go down, they are a little less strong, they are dying in the sounds ready to ring, there is the absence of voices, laughs. the rising tension. there is a girl, with number _1_ on the music stand, long purple dress, her legs are shaking, but she walks towards this piano a little smaller than ten years ago, and there is a girl, and hundreds of gazes at her slim body, and she steps forward to play. _kenma too_ , kuroo thinks, _kenma too will have to move forward._

she sits down in that strident, unbearable silence, that silence that suffocates them. for a moment, kuroo believes it will prevent the girl from raising her hand, playing, fulfilling her complicated mission to break it, this silence, this absence of sounds, of music.

but it doesn’t.

the black suit is wide, the sleeves fall slightly on his wrists, but kenma loves this distance, this freedom to breathe.

in the participants' room, kenma can hear the sound of the piano. Chopin, Nocturne N.11 in G Minor, Op.77, N.1.

kenma, he hopes, in this empty room filled with water bottles and posters of musical notes, he hopes, kenma, maybe, if the gods are on his side, he hopes he can hear his too.

when he closed the buttons of his white shirt, kenma felt his heart beating very empty against his fingers. his heart wants to come out of his chest, to go around the world never to return.

and kenma, he must put this wandering heart on the keys of the keyboard, he must succeed in catching this fleeing heart between his too thin fingers, and he must keep it, very close, very gently in his palms, so that this volatile heart caresses this keyboard, and that it remains there.

 _it's impossible_ , kenma thinks, kenma believes, kenma is sure of it. hiroko must know that too, she smiles at him as if she knows, and as if she wants kenma to try anyway. _impossible_ , kenma thinks, and kuro, he doesn't know anything, kuro, he doesn't know anything, but kuro believes in everything. kuro thinks that kenma can touch the keyboard as if the piano is going to respond to him, as if kenma deserves to be listened to. kuroo believes in everything, especially kenma, especially in the way kuro gives everything, everything he loves, he gives everything he has got, even if he ends up exhausted, depressed, ridiculous, dead. everything he has got to the unfreezing world.

 _ah_ , his heart is pounding. hard, deep, kenma can hear it against his eardrums. kenma does not know if it is because of the questioning looks, because of all these people, all these musicians of his age, who give everything, who play violently, with passion. kenma hears them. kenma is sitting on the hallway floor, he is strumming on the floor, the notes he is going to play on the keyboard, soon, soon, he is hearing for the applause for the third performance, it is soon his turn, time for reunion, find the place he fled.

they call him, at the door of the stage, they say _kenma kozume, please prepare yourself_ , and kenma responds with a _yes_ that is lost in the intense beating of his heart. he's all set, kenma, to free himself from the past, to try to move forward, to be as free as the music can be, as hiroko says.

it's scary, kenma thinks, as he starts to cross the hall to get to the platform. behind the scenes, his footsteps are light, they move towards his sentence with an almost disconcerting tranquility. kenma tries to remember, the colors, the thousands of colors that he has encountered, these last ten years. kenma didn't know there were so many colors, so many smells; it's exciting, life, it can be, it can take you to the guts, burn you, and put out the flames. hold your soul in the depths of the abyss. kenma tries to think, think, of the laughs he escaped, the notes he stroked, the sounds he heard, and kenma, he walks, walks, towards that piano too huge for his teenage body, he walks, the hand of the clock quivers, it vibrates. she is about to move again.

time will start flowing again.

kuroo became oddly silent.

maybe it's because lev snores a little, that yaku can only concentrate on kuroo, and his silence, his almost religious calm. kuroo concentrates, it takes all his attention, all his strength, to wait.

there is a man who places the number _5_ on the desk. yaku kicks lev's ribs. he wakes up. kuroo has always been awake.

kenma, kenma, it's strange to see him in a black suit, to see him in this space they don't know, on the platform of the world that doesn't belong to them. it's weird, but kenma blends into the background, the way he walks forward, his hair hides his cheeks, and they're too far away to see the features of his face, but they invent, they invent, the fine features that slip into concentration.

it's uncanny, because it's new, but they can't help but think, all, when the audience starts to whisper _it's him, it's kozume, the return of the genius_ , they think, all, _kenma kozume_ , that kenma belongs there.

when kenma sits on the armchair, facing the shiny piano, kuroo puts his head in his hands, kuroo doesn't look, he leans forward, his head in his arms, his arms in the front seat, and kuroo waits, he waits to hear, he lowers his head, yaku sees, yaku notices his eyes closed, his forehead on his arms, kuroo waits.

yaku doesn't know what kuroo is expecting, he doesn't know anything, yaku. he knows that kuroo has always been strange, always when it’s about kenma, as if the world is theirs, as if there is only them. yaku does not know what kuroo is expecting, he just knows that, between its too bright lights, under the spotlight, and this waxed floor, kuroo does not look at kenma.

kuroo hears him.

in front of him, the piano is overpowering him.

kema heard, curious murmurs, his name on everyone's lips, when his shoes brushed against the waxed floor, and the too yellowish lights shone in his eyes. kenma knows these people are watching him. let the whole world listen to him.

and the piano, in front of him, with the keys too white, the keys too black, he takes it from above. he intimidates him.

kenma remembers ten years ago, maybe a little less, kenma remembers, when he just sat down here in the same place and just looked at this wood that aspired him to the abyss. kenma only watched his tears stain the sparkling keyboard, the keys too clean, and kenma only cried, cry, as if he was only the last in the world to exist.

for a second, kenma thinks the scene is repeating itself. kenma can only look at his notes which he cannot touch. he hears the whispers still rising, wondering why, why the famous kenma kozume doesn't move, no more gesture, no more movement, _please_ , kenma tries to move forward, he tries, tries, just tries. he can't, because he won't, because–

_we are all afraid._

ah, that’s right. kuro.

kenma, he wonders, how does kuro do, when the ball falls under his nose, but he's a little too far from the net, what does kuro do, when the ball seems so far, _too_ far. kenma, he wonders, how does he do, yaku, when he still has to get a ball on his already red, irritated arms, what does he do, yaku, when his legs are shaking enough to no longer keep it upright. and lev, him, kenma wonders, how he manages to jump even higher, after he has already missed twenty of his passes, how he does, lev, to still have the strength to jump, kenma wonders, how they all do, to have the courage to still–

_go on._

when kenma finally touches the white and black keys, when his hands finally move above the keyboard, there is kuro, kuro that he can't see, at the back of the room, that he can't see, all the way background, kuro, who suddenly opens his eyes, the music reaching his ears. this music, the hammers of the piano making its strings vibrate, this sound reached through the tips of his fingers. kuroo waited ten years for this precise sound, this flawless, impeccable playing, and kuroo, he opens his eyes, he wants to be sure it's real.

kenma plays like he's always played. kenma remembers, when he strums this chord, he remembers hiroko, asking him how he wants to play the score, and there, right now, kenma is playing as he always has. kenma knows the score by heart, he could recite it even asleep, even in his grave, kenma could tell the exact location of the notes, he could remember the tempo, the way his fingers are supposed to slide on the key. this unmatched accuracy. the stainless steel-like piano inaccessible to others. kenma kozume, or the metronome? sometimes, they can't tell, they can't tell the difference. kenma either. his fingers are agile, they slide, stroke, at the right time, in the right way, kenma plays on the strength of his muscle memory, he can hear the sound, and he is the mirror reflecting the score. nothing less. nothing more. bland and innocuous.

kenma, he feels a drop of sweat running down his cheek. he has his black hair down, falling over his face, obscuring the view of his profile. kenma, he doesn't want to see. not see the others, nothing, or anyone. kenma, he sees only this piano which resonates under his fingers. kenma, he doesn't want to see anything, nothing, nothing, especially not this place, this place he knows, by heart too, this place he used to look over, the entrance of the left side, facing the audience. _shit_ , kenma thinks. he saw.

it was only a glance, too short to be even a look, it was nothing, not even a second, less than a millisecond, but it's too late, kenma saw, saw this emptiness, kenma saw this absence, and now he can't stop thinking about it. kenma thinks only of the entrance of the left side, facing the audience, his sit, the special place he used to be. he isn’t anymore. he won’t ever be there anymore. it’s an evidence. the dead, they do not come back. but if kenma, kenma seven years old, a little less maybe, if kenma had caught him, with his boyish strength, with his arms too small to catch his manga at the top of the shelf, if kenma the had caught up, with his weakness of a kid who doesn't know anything, maybe, it's a guess, it's not real, it's only an if-what, because he's dead, so kenma, he doesn't, he can’t take his wrist and pull it back against him, keep his head from falling, falling, against the piano body, blood, falling, flowing to the floor, maybe kenma wouldn't have seen death so close, too early, if–

 _shit,_ kenma thinks. the notes, the sound… he can’t hear it. kenma, he knows, he no longer hears, because he does not deserve to hear, because of the existence of this if, and if, they should not have existed, these ifs. if he had caught up with him, on a million chances, on the billions of destinies that the universe has invented for him, for them, is that in these thousands of possibilities, there is one where he saves him, where he does not indirectly kill him? his sound is too rough, and excruciatingly fast. here we go again. kenma, he only hears the hammers of the piano, kenma, he hits a little harder, he wants the piano to answer him. like it did. but it doesn’t. it’s not ringing out. the sound of the piano. the sound. he is about to be consumed by a deep sea. _focus. focus. focus._ the notes have abandoned him.

the entrance of the left side, facing the audience.

kenma, he thinks of him, sometimes, every day, of all the memories he invents, because they won't exist. kenma, he would have liked to compose a score with him, because his grandfather knew all the sounds of the piano, the piano, he was; it was he, the piano, he made one with it. kenma, he would have liked to tell him about his mom's gift, a new game for his console, but he won't play much, because there is only the piano, for now. kenma will play it in the evening, before going to sleep, he will hide his console under his pillow, and he will play there, a lot, a lot, but without being tired for the piano lesson the next day. kenma, he would have liked to share this secret with him. he would have wanted one more winter, one more year, one more playing, more, more, until time they were infinite, until time he was no longer dead, his grave under the earth, the funeral that kenma fled, running like he never ran, far from black clothes, far from her mother's tears, far from his coffin, far, far.

is there a chance, in these thousands of possibilities that the universe has for him, that kenma did not run?

the entrance of the left side, facing the audience.

 _maybe I’ll just stop_ , kenma thinks. kenma can’t hear the notes anymore, he can tell. his whole-body screams at him. it's dreadful. it is atrocious. it is not Chopin. it is not even himself. it's nothing. just a noise. the notes all over the place. so fast; quicker. panicking. feet banging against the pedals, hammers crashing into the ropes. an ordeal for the ears. _maybe I’ll just stop._

sweat runs down to his chin, crashes on the keyboard. splashes this agony.

kenma is still the same, after all. think he could play, play as he wanted, play like music was freedom, maybe he expected too much? kenma thought that by entering a competition, something would change. but kenma is still his same old self. nothing has changed.

kenma pretends to want to stay in frozen time in order to forget this awful truth, which kenma denied, denied, for ten years, ignored. time and its prisoner. even when kenma tries, when he tries to be no longer weak, to move forward, to free himself, time moves again, and kenma is still the same. the time around him again, the past still on his skin. the blood on his hands, kenma may run his hand under water, and the blood does not go away. _maybe I’ll just stop._

his playing is slowing down, the tension is fading away from his playing, he has lost all energy, the past is hard to take on the shoulders, it tires him. kenma can't see it, kenma can't hear it, but kuroo has straightened up from his seat, and his eyes say, they scream, hoping to reach him, _no, don't stop_ , and hiroko, she has her hands crossed almost in the form of a prayer, she closed her eyes, she repeats in her mind, she whisper it loudly, _you can't stop!_ the murmurs go up, too, in the audience, they don't understand the slowing down of his playing, _is he really going to stop midway_? their lips let escape, _no, no it's kozume, it can't–_

and there is this silence. even more unbearable than silence. his arm is lowered, sucks towards the side of his body, towards the ground, towards the underworld. kenma drops his arm, his hand, and at the tips of his fingers, drops of sweat slip. there is this noise, this sound of abandonment, when his hand hits the wood of his seat.

he really stopped playing. the silence says.

now, the whispers are too loud to be only murmurs. they wonder why, they wonder what is going to happen, for him, for kenma kozume, _he is eliminated, of course._ and kenma knew it, as soon as his fingers lifted off the keys not to touch them again, kenma knew. kenma can almost hear the jury crossing his name off their records, with a sharp hand movement, a harsh noise. and the loudest sound, in all this chaos, was the concern in kuro's eyes.

kenma doesn't have to turn his head, look for his gaze, perceive it to find out. _ah,_ kenma thinks. _you really don't give me a break, eh, kuro? you’re really merciless._ in the place where kenma kept all his words, all his caresses, this love that he planted, that he watered, with kisses, this place, with a thousand blossoming flowers, this place, kuro, where he posed his lips, that place, where kuro, he left his full fondle, kenma can hear, inside of him. this bit that kuro entrusted to him. this fragment of him. his oddment won’t let him give up. kuro is so merciless. this particle of him, that kuro gave him, when he was eight years old, and he held out his hand to him, it only grew, only got greater, so loud that kenma can only hear him, his murmurs, his whispers, kenma can only see kuroo no matter where he looks. no matter what he sees, kenma is reminded of him. even the kuro inside him won’t lose heart.

 _that day_. kenma thinks. _that day_. _kuro. i wonder. when my blood was running on my jersey, slipping to the ground, that game, when I was only on the bench, when we had no setter left, you played, played like you never played, you played with everything you had, you played until the fabric of your shoes broke, until your breath was stuck in your throat, until your veins on your thighs exploded against your skin, until time that all of your hair fell on your forehead, until time you couldn't take it anymore, to jump, to block, until time your bony fingers break, until time let your body faint. kuro. I wonder. That day. you played like you've never played. you played until you bleed._

 _that day._ kenma thinks. _what did you play for?_

inside kenma, kuro lives, kuro exists. they are memories, sometimes. there is a red scarf with the smell of summer and better days. there is the mikasa volleyball ball that kuro handed him, on this abandoned ground, on this dirty grass. there is this team that kuro has built for him, this team that comes to teach him when he is absent, this team that gives him their jacket, sometimes, because kenma is easily cold. this team become friends. kuro gave him that, too. there are plenty of memories, in this secret garden, this garden of a thousand colors, this garden of memories, a decade of love, affection, tears, quarrels, and reconciliation. a lot of touchdowns, a lot of presence, a lot of words. there is one in particular, one who remains, only one, kenma will remember it all his life, from kuro, who turns towards him, towards his legs which are trembling in this too big gymnasium, kuro, which, under the lights, seem divine. kuro smiles, he smiles in the chaos of groans, and he says–

_again._

so kenma does.

kenma knows his tempo is uneven, his fingers click a little too hard against the keys, but kenma is playing, again, he has just started again, there are bursts of surprise, kenma is hearing them, but kenma does not stop, he plays, kenma, again.

(Your imagery is what’s important. How do you want to play this piece? Who do you want to play it for?)

 _that day._ kenma thinks. _I_ _wonder. for what… for whom were you playing?_

(What's your name? Mine, it's Kuroo. Tetsurou Kuroo.)

(Kenma.)

(Play with me!)

(I don’t know if I can.)

(You have to play. As much as you have the chance.)

(But I’ll be crying the whole time.)

(That’s fine.)

(Please support me in this moment that I’m about to lose heart.)

(I’m here.)

 _ah,_ kenma thinks. _that’s right._

kenma, he remembers. kenma, he remembers. there is one scenery in particular, its essence is still in kenma’s mind. kuro's room. messy. books on the floor. his glasses with broken lenses on the desk. the window is open. month of April. the shadow of the pieces of petals. the smell of new sheets. the curtains dance. the wind makes his hair vibrate. it's a morning. it's early. the birds sing. and kenma, he can hear kuro still sleeping. like a cat. his peaceful breath caresses his ears. the tip of his black hair tickles the tip of his nose. his eyelashes touch his skin. tomorrow, kuro will still be there. faint breathing. circles under the eyes. around his fingers, kuro’s, there are some bandages. yesterday, kuro bled. kenma, he didn't know why, at that moment, why kuro played until unconsciousness.

(I appoint you as my setter!)

now, kenma knows.

_I’m going to play for you._

when his playing changes, so does the sound. a few minutes ago, he was just incredible precision on a keyboard, then a child hammering the keys, and now, when his fingerprints brush the wood, the sound begins to dance in a waltz of a thousand colors. tonight, there are three sides of kenma kozume. now, tetsurou kuroo could boast of knowing kenma kozume in his whole being. the entirety of his soul. whose fragments, sometimes so tiny that Kuro was afraid they would slip from his fingers, have all come together in this decade that they have shared together.

(I’m going to play with everything I’ve got. So that people can enjoy volleyball as much as I do. So that volleyball can live in their heart forever. Just like it does in mine.)

kenma, it doesn't need the whole world to recognize him. kenma, he doesn’t need the world to look for him. kenma, if there is only one person watching him, if there is only kuro listening to him, that is enough. _do you hear it?_

kuro, he already lives in his heart. kenma keeps him preciously, it's a treasure. kenma knows he doesn't show it. kenma does not show it to anyone. kenma, he says nothing. kenma lets the silence live. words are not for him. kenma does not speak, kenma plays. hear his notes, hear his playing, it begins to sparkle. him, little one, with bandages on his knees, the ball on his hip. him, the green jersey that suits him well, and his sparkling smile. him, and number _1_ on his back, his care as a captain, his love for the sport. him, and the pencil at the end of his lips, glasses on his nose, sighs, sometimes, equations in the back of his eyes. him, kisses on his neck, obscene whisper, glassy eyes, black hair on his forehead. _I hope you do._

kuro. kenma has all these words in him, inside, close to him, these words are not meant to be said. these are _thank you_ and _I love you_ , tender things that kuro is used to tell to him, and that kenma is used to not giving him back. by taking them out of his mouth, they could die. so kenma keeps them inside, deep, he takes care of them, kenma keeps them alive, with tenderness, and sometimes, they find themselves wandering, and they run all over his body. they are kisses, caresses, hands in hair, passing fingers, shy smiles, invented silence. sometimes, today, they even come under his fingers. under his prints, under his fingertips, and they play. they play. inside him, deep, under his fingers, they make him play.

_do you hear it? I hope you do._

when kenma takes his fingers off the keyboard, because he has played, all the road, this time, there is always this silence. for a few seconds, people wonder, question each other, by their looks, _what was it_ , this changing performance, this perfect precision, this atrocity of hearing, this dazzling sensitivity. they start to clap, some, because others still don't know. _was it good or was it bad?_ they whisper to each other in the audience. there is not feedback; it does not matter.

when kenma bends down, one last time, he can only think of one person. only him matters.

_do you hear it? I hope you do._

♪

**reaching you**

when kenma finds the others, in the corridors whose murmurs are a little louder, their eyes more focused and curious, yaku asks him why he is not going to look at the results. kenma, he shrugs. he says he doesn't care. in the back of his mind, he adds, in love, _I wasn't playing for that_.

hisoko, she comes, too, she finds him, and she takes him in her arms, she smells of cigarettes, she has her daughter by her side, and she laughs a little, she says that his performance was catastrophic, but it was good. mostly atrocious. kenma doesn't ask what that means, he just knows, like her, that others are starting to talk about rebirth and omen. kenma ignores.

kenma, he wants to ask, the question almost escapes his lips, he does not see kuro, he is not there, so he wants–

“Hey, hey, hey!” kenma hears, before being lifted into the air. “You did so great out there, Kenma!”

“Bokuto-san, leave Kozume alone.” these voices, kenma knows them by heart. these are friends that kuro gave him, too. bokuto, he's laying kenma on the ground, pouting, because he thought that was a good way to show his affection, surely. “Sorry about that.”

“What are you guys doing here.” kenma, he tries not to sound accusatory, but it embarrasses him, everyone who has seen him. one was enough for him. kenma always has his cheekbones shining in little pink.

“Tetsu told us!” bokuto exclaims, he has his hands on his hips, a big smile on his lips, his eyes shine. this might be the first time he's been in this kind of place, bokuto, and kenma wouldn't be surprised to learn that bokuto begs akaashi to play the piano, too, because bokuto wants to hear that sound again. he's a little baby, bokuto, you have to know how to put him to sleep. and akaashi, he can't say no to him. “We were a bit late because we had practice, but we made it, hey!”

kenma can hear yamamoto whispering to the others that yeah, kuroo has warned the whole world, and he's surprised little karasuno number 10 hasn't landed here too, with encouragement too loud to fit in his small body. kenma wants to know more, but akaashi catches his gaze, steel eyes, and he says, voice indifferent:

“Congratulations on your performance.”

“Thank you.”

and kenma knows the end of the world is near. bokuto starts chatting with yaku, telling him that he didn’t remember how small yaku was. lev bursts into laughter, and yaku will surely kill him later. yamamoto is more discreet to hide his laughter between his cheeks, but yaku has surely seen his lips pursed, and it's still over for him. in all these laughs, in all his smiles, there is one missing.

“Where is Kuro?” kenma asks, trying to not sound too worried.

“Well,” akane begins. she is embarrassed, kenma can feel it. she is looking for words, she doesn’t find them, and akane isn’t a liar, so she just bits her lower lips until it becomes red. kai saves her.

“He is coming back soon,” he smiles. kai has always known how to convey his peace of mind and blow on anxieties. “We're going to the restaurant we usually go to after school, will you join us with Tetsurou-kun later? We will reserve places. I'm afraid there will be too many people if we don’t leave now.”

kenma doesn't try to find out more, he nods, kai smiles, lev complains, because yaku hit him earlier than expected, akaashi asks bokuto to stop bothering akane, _she is shy, you scare her_ , and they leave, like that, yamamoto waves his hand, inuaka says _see ya_ , and they leave this world where they didn’t belong to, and they came into anyways.

kenma sighs. kenma is waiting. kenma takes his phone out of his pocket, he sees several messages. hinata. he apologizes, he says he couldn't come, it was too far, he had practice, but he really wanted to come, and he hopes that kenma did well. he knows that kenma was awesome, he said. _it’s okay. thank you._ kenma answers.

kenma looks up at his phone when he hears a few cries of joy, a few breaths of tears. the results. they are all gathered around a board with an index card in too black ink, the writing too thick, and they gather in the hope of seeing their name on it. kenma, he doesn't make a move.

“Hey,” someone calls. kenma knows this voice. he kissed it.

“Again late.” kenma, he glances at kuro. he ran. he has sweat on his forehead. his breathing is rickety, it is rapid, his chest lifts too much, frantic, almost, he has run. kenma, he doesn't know what kuro ran towards. “Kuro.”

“It's because I know you forgive me every time.” kenma, he knows he's going to find out. that does not worry him too much. kenma knows all about kuro. because there is also, inside, a fragment that he took care to leave. when, at age seven, kenma took his reddened hand in his.

kuro, he has eyes that sparkle. glassy eyes. his hazel eyes have never been so clear. maybe it's because of the lights, or because of all that tenderness he can't contain. even if kuro is tall, his body slender, his shoulders huge. this softness, she runs along her skin, she is ready to go out, she is ready to exist even stronger. more violently. with that ferocity that one can have, that adoration that comes from love. his black t-shirt, then usually loose, sticks lightly against his chest. it's because kuro ran, and kuro ran fast. maybe, kuro, maybe he ran like he has never run.

his black hair is stuck to his forehead. the back of his ebony hair is a little curlier, because kuro had to face the wind against him, when he ran. behind his back, there are his two hands.

“Don’t get used to it too much.”

“Yeah.” kuro smiles, kuro comes, he kisses his forehead quickly, his lips are chaste against his skin, kenma doesn't have the strength to tell him _not here_ , because he finds himself, kenma, not giving a damn. there is only one person looking at him.

“Why are you smiling like that.”

_did you hear it?_

kuro, he smiles, touched and in love, his whole-body smiles, his tired body, his eyes too, in the depths of his pupil, there are stars, shining, sparkling enough for them to touch kenma, too. his smile, his thin lips, they tremble, they tremble without shaking, they vibrate, they must have had a hard time staying against his own skin.

“Nothing. Just being proud of you.”

_I hope you did._

kuro is hiding something behind his hands.

kenma does not have time to open his mouth, kuro opens his, he lets slip a trembling sigh, it overflows, this love, and kuro starts to smile a little harder, he tries for its words not to run away from his lips. and kuro stretches out his arms, kuro shows a bouquet of pink azaleas, they are beautiful, they are sweet, kuro smiles. kenma has never received any, he already knows them, flowers. they are all over him. those, he can’t seem them – he feels them, deep, greater. kuro too, he learned how to make them grow, tenderly and gently.

but today, kuro wanted him to be able to feel them under his thin fingers. his footprints that have already caressed, his hands that have finally brushed. kuro ran, ran to the florist, and he said, he asked for flowers when we love and are loved in return, and the florist handed him his pink azaleas.

“Kenma Kozume.”

kuro, his voice does not tremble, he breathes, kuro smiles, his eyes shine, kenma's, maybe too, kenma will never admit it to himself, kenma confesses his love only by playing it, and kuro says, with this same enthusiasm, this smile, he will never leave him, kenma will make sure of it, even if he died, even if the world caved in. there are only ifs. cause, kenma knows. for now, they are immortals.

“I appoint you as my pianist.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi, i'm finally done writing this, and I want my lost sleep hours back.
> 
> first, thank you so much to have read this thing so far. it's really long, I hesitated to split it into three chapters, I didn't, maybe so that you guys would be more carried away by this. i hope i did ;)
> 
> it's the first time that I write about them, this couple, I like them very much; kenma, too, one of my favorite characters. he was so complicated to write though. I have the impression that there are several representations of kenma (soft kenma, and gremlin kenma), so it is rather difficult. i haven't read the manga, and i'm sure kenma is revealed more, but i'm still with this image of kenma a bit shy, asociable, lazy, and one who hates conflict. I hope the way i painted kenma was still good, just a little bit.
> 
> thanks for reading. sorry, i never played the piano, i tried to educate myself to know a minimum. please let me know, pianists, if there are any mistakes.
> 
> (ps: i know it's a little unbelievable that kenma is playing again almost ten years after quitting. we are going to put that on the fact that kenma was a genius, and also, for ten years, he did not stop thinking about the piano, in spite of himself. then also: it's fiction. please pianists friends don't be mad at me!)
> 
> take care!


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